RSL Suffers Back-to-Back Defeats for First Time Since April 2010
August 3, 2011 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
Real Salt Lake News Release
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Wednesday, August 3, 2011) - Real Salt Lake saw two goals in quick succession spell its doom for a second straight contest, this time with Sporting Kansas City doing the honors in a 2-0 victory over the Utah side in front of a sell-out crowd of 18,467 at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. The defeat resulted in Real Salt Lake's first back-to-back losses in a season-and-a-half, while the win pushed Sporting KC's undefeated streak to 14 games running.
Much like in last Saturday's loss to Columbus, Real Salt Lake fell victim to a pair of tallies within five minutes of each other in the first half, but this time it was Kansas City doing the damage around the half-hour mark. The outburst began through MF Roger Espinoza in the 29th minute, when the Honduran split a pair of RSL defenders at the top of the area before slotting home to GK Nick Rimando's short-side just inside the left post. Five minutes later Rimando did well to reach back and keep Sporting KC FW Kei Kamara's header out of goal, but FW Teal Bunbury raced in to get on the rebound, which he slammed off Rimando from close range to push the lead to 2-0.
Real Salt Lake would get the break it needed to climb back into the match in the 56th minute, when Espinoza saw a straight red card for a reckless challenge from behind on RSL captain Kyle Beckerman, giving the visitors a man advantage for the remainder of the match. While the Claret-and-Cobalt would outshoot the home side 14-3 from that point on, they couldn't push anything past Sporting KC GK Jimmy Nielsen, who made all four of his saves on the evening past the 70th minute.
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