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Despite being righteously engulfed in the games going on in Brazil, Real Salt Lake coach Jeff Cassar and his players are embracing their brief hiatus from soccer. While they watch this summer's World Cup and soak up any news about teammates Kyle Beckerman and Nick Rimando with the U.S. men's national team, the message from Cassar to his players was direct: Everybody needs to recharge their batteries.

What was scheduled as a three-week break in Major League Soccer turned into a 14-day shift away from MLS play after RSL crashed out of the U.S. Open Cup tournament 2-1 against NASL's Atlanta Silverbacks earlier this month.

Beat up, undermanned and searching for answers, Cassar said the best formula for RSL rediscovering its early-season form would be to step away from soccer. Players went on brief vacations or returned home to visit friends and family.

"This is as much a mental break as it is a physical break," Cassar said.

Physically, it's also godsend.

RSL went into its Open Cup match with 19 healthy bodies on its 28-man roster due to injuries or players at the World Cup. Midfielder Ned Grabavoy missed the Atlanta match due to hip flexor injury suffered in the club's 3-1 home loss to Portland, while Javier Morales' 270-minute performance in eight days left the 34-year-old tired and unavailable. Alvaro Saborio, in Brazil with the Costa Rican national team, remains out until September or October with a broken foot. And with the club going 0-3-2 in its last five matches and an early exit from the Open Cup, the forecasted summer storm brewing over RSL has suddenly hit the team hard.

"You lose to a minor-league team, there's a wake-up element to that," RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey said. "It's not acceptable."

With some time off and before players start to filter back to the Salt Lake Valley for training this weekend, Cassar echoed a sentiment he's been preaching for quite some time: RSL has to learn how to close out teams. The Open Cup loss to Atlanta marked the seventh time in 16 matches this year in which RSL has taken a lead, but wasn't able to secure three points. Without star players and with vital core players battling injury, the responsibility will continue to fall on younger, more unproven players to keep the club afloat the tight Western Conference race, starting June 28 at Chivas USA.

"It's sometimes easy when you can plug players into certain situations with certain players around them and have them be successful," Cassar said. "It's a lot different when you're putting out a big group of players who haven't played much or haven't played much together, but you want the same result as if you had your full team out there. It's stepping back to being realistic what's going on. I totally am."

In recent years, a late June trip to Chivas wouldn't necessarily be one circled on the calendar. But with its recent MLS struggles, an early elimination from Open Cup and managing to score just three goals in its last five outings, a visit to the StubHub Center should demand three points.

"Chivas is a more difficult opponent than people give them credit for," Lagerwey said. "We have to win this game. We have to arrest the slide, and get this going in a positive direction again." —

RSL at Chivas USA

O June 28, 8:30 p.m.

TV • Ch. 4