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As the derby turns …
You can try to manufacture a rivalry all you want.
But until one side hurts the other, really inflicts some damage, all you’ve got is press releases, window dressing and hollering.
After Real Salt Lake joined Major League Soccer in 2005, some well-meaning fans whipped up a trophy and a competition that RSL and the Colorado Rapids, by virtue of their mountainous locales, could vie for. The Rocky Mountain Cup was born.
The Deseret News tells when the series got personal for RSL.
But in Colorado, it was mostly was neat, a bauble that the Rapids could hold high after beating their little stepbrother to the west.
Then fan favorite Kyle Beckerman got traded to the Utah team.
Then Real Salt Lake won the Cup in 2007 … in just its third season in the league … in the season finale … with a victory at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park … a shutout, no less.
Then Nat Borchers, a Pueblo native and University of Denver alumnus and a Rapids fan favorite, was allocated to RSL after playing in Norway.
All of that was annoying enough. Losing that first Rocky Mountain Cup was like losing a game of H-O-R-S-E to that little stepbrother.
Then came Oct. 25, 2008. It was at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park again. It was the season finale again. With a playoff berth on the line, the Rapids held a 1-0 lead. It was all they needed to reach the MLS postseason.
But Yura Movsisyan scored in the 90th minute to tie the game and end Colorado’s season. A tie was all Salt Lake needed to advance, and Movsisyan, in the cruelest of fashions, took the playoffs from the Rapids and gave them to his own team.
Rapids fans remember. I remember. When the 2009 schedule was released, the first things I looked for were how many times RSL would visit Commerce City and when.
But do the players remember the pain of last season’s finale? Have the players circled Saturday’s date on their calendars?
Rapids coach Gary Smith said he doesn’t think so. Saturday’s game, the first time the teams have met since last season, holds little extra significance for his team, he said.
“I felt as though we deserved the victory at the end of last season, but that’s gone now,” Smith said. “We’re into a new campaign now. We both have new problems to deal with and qualities to be proud of, and I wouldn’t have thought the players will harp on that too much.”
He did say the familiarity between the teams will produce a spirited contest on its own merits.
“They’ll know each other inside out,” Smith said. “A lot of players from Salt Lake have been here and been teammates of some of the guys here. There’ll be some good individual battles, and we’ll obviously be looking to that three points.”
Last week, the Rapids’ home fixture featured another late goal by the visitor and another 1-1 draw, this one with Los Angeles. Meanwhile Real Salt Lake demolished New England with six second-half goals in a record-setting home victory.
“They’ll be full of confidence, but I think everyone will take each game as it comes. I’m sure (RSL coach) Jason (Kreis) will be delighted with their win, and rightly so,” Smith said last Saturday. “But New England are a different set-up and a different team to L.A. We should still have gotten our three points. And whether it’s six goals or one goal, you can only get three points for that.
“We look forward to Salt Lake coming in as a local derby. But whether it be New England, Salt Lake or L.A. coming in, we’re still looking to bag as many points as possible.”
And as for the wave of confidence that RSL may have been riding after its victory over New England … well, let’s just say that wave crested midweek, when Salt Lake lost 4-1 to Seattle in a U.S. Open Cup play-in game.
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