America First Field, Sandy, UT – It was hard to watch RSL lose tonight against FC Dallas and some very questionable calls from referee Sergii Boiko. The night started off with high energy play and RSL was attacking had a number of good chances at least until the 23rd minute. That is when things went south for RSL when in the 23rd minute after an FC Dallas foul there was a some continuing action behind the play. Boiko went to VAR and returned with a very questionable Red Card being shown to RSLs top goal scorer Ariath Piol. Down a man RSL played tough but late in the half, 7 minutes into 5 minutes of stoppage Luciano Acosta scored the loan goal of the match.
The first half was dominated by the Red Card to Piol but RSL had its share of chances before that and was putting consistent pressure on the FC Dallas defense. Possibly the highlight of the match was when Boiko awarded a Penalty Kick to Dallas in the 34th minute that was taken by Acosta who was denied in heroic fashion by keeper Rafael Cabral. It looked like the home club would keep it level as they headed to the locker room but in the dying moments of the half Luciano Acosta was able to put his club on top.
The second half was even more high energy than the first with the Claret and Cobalt not giving up and everyone came up big in the effort. With zero shots in the first half RSL was able to rip of 9 shots after the break but being down a man there just wasn’t enough bodies available to throw at Dallas to equalize. One positive takeaway from the match was seeing Real attacking so aggressively. For a club that sometimes struggles to find someone that is interested in taking shots there was not lack of everyone looking for the strike.
Sergii Boiko played a huge part in the match. Starting with the questionable Red Card that started his decent into his struggle to maintain any semblance of control in the match to the 9 Yellow Cards he raised in the match plus the 2 he showed to the RSL bench. We can only hope that PRO takes a hard look at tonights match and makes sure we get more from the officials in the future. With the loss RSL falls to 11th in the West and has a lot of work to do as they try to claw back into contention. Next up for Real Salt Lake is a visit to Allianz Field on March 29th when they take on Minnesota.
Goals by Period 1 2 F
Real Salt Lake 0 0 0
FC Dallas 1 0 1
Scoring Summary
DAL – Luciano Acosta – 45’+7′
Misconduct Summary
RSL – Ariath Piol – 23′ – Red Card
RSL – Pablo Ruiz – 25′ – foul
DAL – Petar Musa – 27′ – foul
RSL – Forster Ajago – 68′ – foul
DAL – Logan Farrington – 74′ – foul
RSL – Brayan Vera – 74′ – foul
RSL – Philip Quinton – 75′ – foul
DAL – Katlego Ntsabeleng – 89′ – foul
DAL – Sebastien Ibeagha – 90’+3′ – time wasting
DAL – Luciano Acosta- 90’+6′ – foul
Officials
Referee: Sergii Boiko
Assistant Referee: Chris Elliott
Assistant Referee: Eduardo Jeff
4th Official: Elton Garcia
Video Assistant Referee: Daniel Radford
AVAR: Brian Marshall
Lineups
Real Salt Lake: Rafael Cabral; Brayan Vera; Philip Quinton; Justen Glad; Sam Junqua (Alex Katranis, 66′); Nelson Palacio(Lachlan Brooks, 66′); Braian Ojeda; Diogo Goncalves; Pablo Riuz (Tyler Wolff, 47′); Ariath Piol; Forster Ajago (Kobi Henry, 81′)
Substitutes Not Used: Bode Hidalgo; Mason Stajduhar; Griffon Dillon; Javain Brown
Head Coach: Pablo Mastroeni
FC Dallas: Michael Collodi; Osaze Urhoghide; Marco Farfan; Shaq Moore; Sebastien Ibeagha; Patrickson Delgado (Katlego Ntsabeleng, 46′); Leo Chu (Logan Farrington, 66′); Sebastian Lletget (Lalas Abubakear, 90’+3′); Luciano Acosta; Ramiro; Petar Musa
Substitutes Not Used: Antonio Carrera; Pedrihno; Show; Enzo Newman; Kaick Ferreira; Bernard Kamungo
Head Coach: Eric Quill
Tags: Real Salt Lake; RSL; FCD; FC Dallas; MLS; Major League Soccer, RSL, Soccer