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SLIDESHOW: Preparing for the MLS Cup soccer championship
There are many people throughout Major League Soccer that would call it a success to have two of its brightest stars in Landon Donovan and David Beckham hold up the MLS Cup tonight.
That would, in their eyes, bring more respect to the league on a global scale and provide images that would be shown around the world since Beckham is one of the planet's most popular athletes.
But Real Salt Lake has taken offense a little to all that talk, and would like nothing more than to spoil those hopes on its way to the MLS Cup championship.
"We're the underdog, nobody wants us to win," said RSL defender Nat Borchers. "All the lovers of Beckham and Donovan are going to want the Galaxy to win."
RSL gets its chance to win the club's first league title when it faces the Los Angeles Galaxy tonight at Qwest Field in Seattle.
The underdog role isn't new to RSL, which was the eighth and last team to qualify for the MLS playoffs. In fact, RSL needed to win and have four other teams lose in the final weekend just to reach the postseason, which obviously happened and that set up RSL's incredible run to tonight's match.
First, RSL faced the MLS-leading Columbus Crew and won both games in the first-round playoff series for a 4-2 win on aggregate goals. Then RSL tied the Chicago Fire on the road in the Eastern Conference final, but won the ensuing shootout to earn a spot in tonight's championship game.
Now, since no professional sports team in the modern era has won a league championship after finishing the regular season with a losing record, RSL once again wants to prove its critics wrong.
"Wow, it sounds like we better not even go," Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis sarcastically told reporters during a conference call earlier in the week. "We don't even have a chance, do we?"
Kreis said that it's wrong to put too much weight into RSL's "losing" record since the team finished just one game (11-12-7) below .500.
"I have a lot of belief in this team because I know what it's capable of," Kreis said. "At the moment the players are playing close to their potential and I believe if they continue to do that we've got every shot in the world and I don't care what any records or stats say."
While some may be surprised the RSL is making its first trip to the MLS Cup final, the players are not. After losing back-to-back road games against the Houston Dynamo and FC Dallas in September, RSL had 18 days until its next game. That was when, according to the players, the team came together for the exciting run that has taken RSL to the MLS Cup final.
"We're not too surprised we're here because when we play our soccer, we feel like we're the best team in the league," said RSL captain Kyle Beckerman. "We're a team that steps up to the occasion."
With none bigger than tonight, RSL would once again like to step up to the occasion.
