by Greg Seltzer for Soccer365
 
Real Salt Lake's autumn drive to the MLS Cup crown had everything. It had drama. It had tension. It had action. It had twists and turns. It had obstacles to overcome. It had interweaving plot lines. And it had an ending straight out of the wildest imagination. In other words, it was just like something you'd see at the movies.

Most of the trailers would have made you think this would be another L.A. story. The Galaxy had traveled their own hard road, with their own lessons learned and they had the star power. Just butter up the popcorn, get comfy and watch the impossibly handsome popular jocks win the day/redemption.

It looked to be lights, camera, action for the boys from Hollywood - until the cast of characters from Rio Tinto changed the script. Counting all those voracious traveling fans as a 12th, Real Salt Lake became the dirty dozen, making do with what they had and getting by on chutzpah-filled belief.

EXT. QWEST FIELD, SEATTLE - SUNDAY EVENING, 22ND MINUTE

(RSL playmaker Javier Morales, who'd talked all week of wanting play the real genius against MLS Cup foe Los Angeles, exits stage left after repeated failed efforts to carry on with an injury. )

The underdogs were having some trouble. One midfielder, Will Johnson, was already playing with food poisoning. Then a seemingly insignificant knee knock with David Beckham (one of the aforementioned pretty boys from La-La Land) forced Morales to the bench.

Who did RSL coach Jason Kries, once the league's all-time top scorer but taking part in his first MLS Cup, call on to stand in? He chose Clint Mathis; the wild one, the gunfighter, himself once a Los Angeles headliner/cover boy and now grizzled championship match substitute.

Good ol' Cletus wasn't the only indelible character in Real Salt Lake's cast, of course. Fellow midfielders Ned Grabavoy (who would replace Johnson at halftime) and Andy Williams (who has been on a tear since his Leukemia-stricken wife took a turn for the much better) combined for just 15 starts this seasons.

In central defense, they had the odd couple: buttoned-down Nat Borchers and brash (relative) newcomer Jámison Olave. Behind them, little big man netminder Nick Rimando. Up top, they had a pair of speed racers, top gun Robbie Findley and Yura Movsisyan (who already had one foot in the terminal for Denmark).

EXT. QWEST FIELD - 41st MINUTE

(L.A. dynamic duo Beckham and Donovan fly into attack, with the latter supplying a perfect far post cross for Mike Magee to nudge past RSL keeper Nick Rimando. It's 1-0 Los Angeles.)

Real Salt Lake had been down before. In their fifth year of existence, the men from Utah have yet to enjoy a winning regular season. This term, they fell behind first in 18 of 30 games, leading at the break just eight times.

With three matches remaining, Real trailed Rocky Mountain arch rivals Colorado by six points, but eventually pulled off a miracle by beating the Rapids on closing day to vault past four clubs into the playoffs. They then trailed by two in the second leg at defending champs Columbus, and now they trailed again.

But as it happened, RSL didn't need to wait for tomorrow for it to turn to another day.

EXT. QWEST FIELD - 64th MINUTE

(A blocked shot falls lovingly to Findley, who ties the game 1-1 with his sixth goal in the four games since Halloween.)

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Real Salt Lake did their work and now they'd come to play. The equalizer was Jack's smirking revenge, Jack's complete lack of surprise.

Los Angeles goalie Donovan Ricketts was forced out with a broken hand. Suddenly, Beckham began limping. Suddenly, the usual suspects in white were not having their usual deep impact on the game. Suddenly, the turning point had arrived and it was about to become that championship season.

With neither side able to conjure a winner over the final hour and change, it seems like old times for Real Salt Lake, who bested Chicago in an away shootout last week to reach the final.

EXT. QWEST FIELD - PK'S ROUND 3 (2-2)

(Mathis and Findley have each bagged a shootout penalty for the second consecutive weekend. Rimando then stops Jovan Kirovski and Kyle Beckerman steps up looking to follow suit against L.A. replacement keeper Josh Saunders. The second-year man, with exactly nine games and four unhappy penalty kick incidents of MLS experience, steps into the line of fire.)

Just when it looked like Cinderella would fit the shoe, the young Galaxy netminder makes Beckerman walk what has to feel like the green mile back to his teammates after seeing his spot kick rejected.

The scene gets darker as Donovan - who a long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away, became the champ for a third time - strides to take his kick. One false move by the RSL keeper means the trophy starts moving out of sight.

The small glimmer of hope against a guy who rarely misses from the spot? Rimando was the last MLS keeper to deny a Donovan penalty. This time, he'd not even need to bother trying.

EXT. QWEST FIELD - PK'S ROUND 4 (2-2)

(Donovan, the golden boy of American soccer, stunningly rockets his penalty over the net and into the night.)

With the outsiders smelling blood, former Galaxy midfielder Grabavoy dutifully netted his penalty for the second week in a row, putting RSL up 3-2 in the shootout and the pressure on Los Angeles.

EXT. QWEST FIELD - PK'S ROUND 5 (3-3)

(Magee scores to even things, but Williams still has the chance to send RSL and its fans stir crazy with the second kick of the fifth round.)

Perhaps it was just too perfect an ending to be real. After all, the 32-year old enjoyed a nice collapse on the big green after failing to snatch a last gasp slip pass in the box on the stretch. Williams, who had gone 120 minutes after running 90 all of once during the regular season, was running on empty.

Spurning glory, weary-legged Williams had his kick stopped by Saunders, who had become a real problem child by matching Rimando heroic for heroic. For the moment, it is an SLC punk.

And so, the warriors moved on to sudden death.

EXT. QWEST FIELD - PK'S ROUND 7 (4-4)

(After each team scores in round six and Rimando makes the key grip on Edson Buddle's attempt, Robbie Russell shows his stripes by coolly firing the title clincher. He turns toward his onrushing teammates and drops to his knees in exaltation. Though merely almost famous, the 30-year old is now a breathless hero to the Utes.)

The Galaxy quest has ended, but not the Beckham experiment. The player will head off to AC Milan for a few months before returning to MLS to try again after World Cup 2010. Donovan, perhaps having played his last Major League Soccer match for at least a good while, hangs his head low as he heads off to a winter of transfer speculation.

Real Salt Lake, on the other hand, were footloose on the winner's podium, bathing in confetti matching their colors. And they danced to celebrate.

INT. QWEST FIELD - PRESS CONFERENCE

(Kreis faces the media, with the sweet smell of success hanging in the air. There is no need to wag the dog on this night. In MLS Cup terms, he'd gone from the man who wasn't there to the man who would be king.)

In giving the rundown of how Real's year of living dangerously ended in la dolce vita, the gaffer sounds a bit like Chili Palmer; he loved being in the game, but now the competition is executive producing the game of their lives. It's a whole new world.

And on this Sunday night in Seattle, mission impossible has become mission accomplished. You can imagine the coach sleeping quite well, thank you. "There is something gratifying about having an idea or a vision about how you want to put a team together and how you'd like them to play," says Kreis.

"When that comes to fruition, and you get to look out there and see them do that... In my opinion, we've been the best team out there in every single game we've played (in October and November), and played really, really good soccer."

DISSOLVE TO:
INT. THE APARTMENT - NIGHT

(A man sits at his computer, trying to think of a perfect ending to the story. One can hear the sounds from on the waterfront as he imagines being there at Qwest Field amid 46,000 fans. Suddenly, he shoots up straight in his chair and begins typing.)

Man... I can't wait to see what happens in the sequel.

Soccer365 reporter Greg Seltzer blogs daily over at No Short Corners. Questions, comments, kudos or complaints? Email him at greg@noshortcorners.com.

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