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Engel confident Real Salt Lakes attacking underperformance will not last

By
Valentina Moreno
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Real Salt Lake defender Lukas Engel is confident the team’s bad luck in front of goal will turn if they continue to create chances, ahead of facing the Portland Timbers on Saturday.

Pablo Mastroeni’s side were beaten 3-1 by Los Angeles FC in their first game following the World Cup break on Wednesday.

That result kept RSL six points behind the Western Conference leaders, the Vancouver Whitecaps, though they did drop one place in the standings to fourth, behind LAFC.

Engel was on the scoresheet in Los Angeles, though it was a case of too little, too late as his strike came when RSL were 3-0 down with only four minutes of the 90 remaining.

But things could have been different, had Mastroeni’s team taken their chances. They had 28 shots to LAFC’s 12 and won the expected goals (xG) battle by 2.78 to 1.16.

“Zavier Gozo did a great job blocking his guy to create the chance for me to score the goal,” Engel said after the game.

“There were a lot of positives to take away from that game. I think we had almost 3.0 xG, which is something we can take away from it.”

Portland are down in 12th place, though their return to league action has been more positive, as they thumped the Seattle Sounders 5-1 before recovering from 1-0 and 2-1 down to draw 2-2 with FC Dallas in midweek.

After Wednesday’s draw, interim head coach Jack Cassidy said there was little time to reflect upon their performance before turning their attention towards the challenge of RSL. 

“Recovery will be the main thing for the next couple of days. We’ll turn all our attention now towards that next game,” Cassidy said.

“Our prep has already started for that. We’ve started to watch the opponent, so we’ll drip feed that into the players over the next few days.

“I think when you have games in a tight week, and this happened to me a lot in England, the best thing you can do is immediately focus on the next game.”

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Portland Timbers – Felipe Mora 

Mora came off the bench to score Portland’s second game-tying goal in second-half stoppage time on Wednesday. 

It was Mora’s 50th goal in MLS play (regular season and playoffs) with 11 of those coming as a substitute, the most MLS goals off the bench by any player in Timbers history.

Real Salt Lake – Saba Lobjanidze 

Lobjanidze came off the bench and delivered an assist for Engel on his Real Salt Lake debut in midweek, having not teed up a single goal over his 13 MLS matches for Atlanta United earlier this season.

MATCH PREDICTION – DRAW

Real Salt Lake have won their last two regular-season meetings with Portland after winning just two of the previous 16 (D5 L9). 

RSL’s only three-match regular-season winning streak over the Timbers came all the way back in 2012.

Both of Portland’s goals in Wednesday’s 2–2 draw with Dallas came in the second half, after they had scored four second-half goals against the Sounders the previous week. 

Entering the World Cup break, Portland had scored multiple goals in a second half only once this season (two on May 9 versus Sporting Kansas City).

Real Salt Lake, however, should put up a good fight, having attempted 28 shots in their loss at LAFC. That was RSL’s most shots in a regular-season match since having 29 against the Timbers in August 2020, and their most in a loss since October 2017 against the Colorado Rapids (29).

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

Portland Timbers – 39.6%

Real Salt Lake – 36.6%

Draw – 23.8%

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