Real Salt Lake enters into the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup tournament in the fourth round on Tuesday against Seattle Sounders FC 2 – the USL affiliate for Seattle’s MLS club of the same name. RSL Head Coach Jeff Cassar knows it will be a difficult matchup against the No. 2 team in the USL’s Western Conference, but he is confident in the team he will put on the field.
“We’re expecting to win. But with that being said, we have to do the things that it’s going to take to win the game,” Cassar said on The Bill & OC Show on ESPN 700 on Monday. “We have to make sure we come out on the front foot, be extremely aggressive, play at a tempo that they’re not used to seeing. And that’s easier said than done. But it is an opportunity that if we come out with the right mentality, the right aggression, start putting some balls in the back of the net – that’s the kind of thing that can carry over into league play. That’s something that we want to do and need to do.”
Cassar has a slew of roster choices, but some are dictated by player availability and he has an eye toward three crucial MLS matches in an upcoming seven-day stretch starting on Sunday against Sporting Kansas City at Rio Tinto Stadium.
In addition to key players coming back from injury in defender Chris Schuler and Jamison Olave, Kyle Beckerman and Nick Rimando returned to training Monday after some time off, Alvaro Saborio was back Saturday after coming on in the final minutes of Costa Rica’s 2-1 loss to Spain on Thursday while Elias Vasquez, Jordan Allen and Abdoulie Mansally all have not trained with the team yet after their own international absences.
“You always have to have a plan for these kinds of stretches. And we do,” Cassar said. “You want to put out a lineup for every game that we think is capable of winning and make sure that we have as fresh of legs as possible.”
Tuesday’s match kicks off at 8 p.m. MT with a live stream of the match available on RealSaltLake.com. To hear the full interview with Cassar, click here.
