Goal.com’s Pat Walsh picks Real Salt Lake as his dark horse for the 2008 MLS season. RSL is the only MLS club to have never made the playoffs. Only once in its short history did RSL finish above last place in the West, and that was 2005, the club’s first season. That year fellow expansion club Chivas USA was slightly more woeful. However, since then, the Los Angeles club has gone on to make the playoffs twice, while finishing first in the Western Conference last year.
Nevertheless, Walsh thinks 2008 will be a breakout year for Real Salt Lake. Walsh says Coach Jason Kreis smartly began planning for 2008 in the final months of the 2007 season, bringing in a trio of talented Argentine players — defender Matias Manilla, midfielder Javier Morales and forward Fabian Espindola — when RSL already had virtually no shot at making the playoffs.
The club has made other quality additions since then, including new defenders Ian Joy, Nat Borchers and Jamison Olave, midfield strongman Dema Kovalenko (recently acquired from the Red Bulls), and Matias Cordoba, who’s on loan from Argentinos Juniors. Walsh says that forward will be the key position, as RSL struggled to score goals last season. If Espindola can strike a potent partnership with second-year forward Robbie Findley, then RSL could be the surprise of 2008.