Trade deadline passes without any late moves

Seattle • Real Salt Lake's front office has had varying success with September additions.

Two years ago, the team signed Yordany Alvarez, who has become a solid backup for captain Kyle Beckerman. A year ago, the team brought in attacker David Viana, who was waived earlier this season after never really breaking into the first team.

This season, with Salt Lake sitting in first place, general manager Garth Lagerwey is standing pat. Major League Soccer's roster freeze deadline came and passed Friday afternoon without a September addition for RSL.

"We're pretty comfortable," coach Jason Kreis said. "We certainly [were] listening and not closing our ears. But we feel pretty confident" in the team's makeup.

Former Bolton Wanderer Ricardo Gardner had been on trial with the team for several weeks, but has since left Utah.

Big timed

The Seattle Sounders can pack CenturyLink field, but there were plenty more eyeballs watching the top two teams in the league battle Friday night. The match was one of just three national TV appearances for RSL this year.

"It is what it is now," said defender Chris Wingert. "This has been happening for years. I think everybody around the league respects us. But I don't really know what the reason is — why we don't get a lot of national television games. But there's nothing we can do about it."

Flying the flag

The red, white and blue were well represented on the Seattle turf.

Nick Rimando and Kyle Beckerman were on opposite benches from Clint Dempsey and Eddie Johnson after all four celebrated together earlier this week in Columbus, Ohio, as the U.S. downed Mexico and qualified for the 2014 World Cup. The future of U.S. soccer was also on display, as RSL's Luis Gil and Seattle defender DeAndre Yedlin, teammates on the U.S. Under 20 team, did battle.

afalk@sltrib.com