St Patty's Home Opener

After an extremely satisfying season opener at LA, RSL returns home to open the home schedule against the unpredictable New York Red Bulls.

Once again, RSL is carrying a ton of injuries entering this game. While they showed last game that they have some pretty solid depth to replace those missing pieces, it's still a bit of a worry for the team in this match. New York, on the other hand, is coming off of a road loss at Dallas over the weekend. They really struggled to get anything going offensively and were outplayed in pretty much every position on the field. They'll be looking to bounce back and, like they did when the RioT opened, ruin the special night for RSL.

With Beltran likely out for knee issues, Morales resting his sore legs, Saborio still recovering, and Johnson still on the road to full health after sports hernia surgery - RSL is going to have an interesting lineup for this one. Expect a lot of the same faces as we did in LA with a new, brightly highlighted one, added in.

Starting XI for RSL
GK: Rimando
LB: Wingert
CB: Olave
CB: Schuler
RB: Tanaka
LM: Grabavoy
DM: Beckerman
AM: Gil
RM: Velasquez
FW: Espindola
FW: Paulo Junior

Bench: Reynish (GK) Borchers (CB) Cruz (CB) Alvarez (DM) Morales (AM) Saborio (FW) Steele (MF)

Key Player for RSL: Terukazu Tanaka

 - The Japanese addition will have to prove his worth in this game. I'm not sure if Kreis will put him on the right or the left side of the defense. If he is on the right, that would likely mean Velasquez is in front of him. Two rookies on the same side of the field? Not something I'd be comfortable with. If he is on the left side, though, he'd probably be going 1v1 with Dane Richards a lot. Also something I'm not too comfortable with. No matter what, it's going to be a match up that decides the game. Tanaka will be defending Lindpere or Richards, two guys that have proven to be lethal against RSL.
RSL should be able to win the midfield, will have a huge advantage with Espindola in the offensive third, but will have a huge question mark at outside back. Schuler and Olave will need to be on the top of their games, too, as the starting forwards for New York will likely be Henry and Cooper (another guy who has had success against RSL). This could very easily turn into a shootout of sorts as the offensive pieces for each team have shown to be successful against the opposing defensive pieces.

Prediction: RSL 3 - New York 2
 - I think we see a flurry of goals in the second half after a 1-0 or 0-0 first half. RSL should, with it being at home and being the more superior team, be able to pull this one out. The biggest thing RSL will have going is that if the game is close, they can bring on both Morales and Saborio to swing things their way. Those two, like they did in LA, will tip the scale in RSL's favor for the win.

FORZA REAL!

Cheers,

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