This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Sandy • Central defender Nat Borchers could see his first action of the season for Real Salt Lake when it plays Chivas USA at Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday, and midfielder Javier Morales might be in position to make his first start.
Borchers played 65 minutes for the RSL reserves in their 1-1 draw with Sporting KC on Tuesday, continuing a recovery trajectory that suggests he will be fully fit soon. Morales, on the other hand, might have increased his chances of starting by not playing for the reserves because his wife went into labor with their second son, while forward Alvaro Saborio played the full 90 for the first time this season.
"We need to see how they recover," coach Jason Kreis said. "They got through today, but tomorrow and the next day will be big indicators."
Both Morales and Saborio could more easily start than Borchers, since it would be strategically easier for Kreis to sub them off later in the game, if necessary.
Midfielder Will Johnson played 45 minutes in the reserve game in his first action since undergoing sports hernia surgery earlier this month, but he's the one guy not expected to play against Chivas USA.
Room for improvement
His team leads Major League Soccer with five goals in two games, but Kreis believes RSL could use a little more urgency in the attack.
"I still think we need to improve on the number of players we are getting forward and involved in our attacks," he said. "We have some nice fluid movements to get the ball up to our forwards, and we need more players to do that than just Luis Gil, and he was oftentimes late in his running to support the forwards. We need to have two or three midfielders and always an outside back involved."
Goats need to want it
For the second straight week, RSL will meet a struggling team in Chivas USA, who have lost both of their first two games 1-0 — both on late set pieces — and drew some criticism from coach Robin Fraser for their lack of aggression against Houston last weekend.
"It's something that we need to address and we need to obviously look at," the former RSL assistant coach said. "To score goals, we need to really want to score goals. I just thought that there were too many times … where, with an aggressive move, we might have been able to create a dangerous opportunity and we weren't aggressive enough."
The Goats are winless (0-4-1) in their past five games against RSL, having managed only two goals in that span — which started with a 4-0 blowout at Rio Tinto in 2009.
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Chivas USAat RSL
P Saturday, 7 p.m.
TV • CW30