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SANDY — Good things tend to happen for Real Salt Lake when Javier Morales steps onto the field.
After entering halftime down 1-0 to third-division club Seattle Sounders FC 2, Morales came off the bench and helped engineer a 2-1 comeback win for the Salt Lake club in the fourth round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup on Tuesday night at Rio Tinto Stadium.
“I want to play,” Morales said after the game. “I was talking with the staff before the game; I’m 35 years old, I don’t know how many more games I have left. So I want to play in everything: Open Cup, regular games, Champion’s League, everything. Tonight, I asked Jeff why I wasn’t on the field, and he said I had to rest. I understand, but I was on the bench and I wanted to play.”
Morales scored the go-ahead goal in the 71st minute, finishing off an irregular indirect free kick from the edge of the 6-yard box after forward Joao Plata slid him the ball to put in the match-winner past Sounders 2 goalkeeper Saif Kerawala.
The Argentine midfielder, who admitted he’s “only seen that (free kick) on TV,” scored the first goal in Open Cup play of his career less than 15 minutes after entering the match as a substitute for starter Pecka, and RSL never looked back.
RSL coach Jeff Cassar said Morales brought more than a starting-caliber quality to the match in his mid-second-half sub.
“It’s quality, it’s vision, but he’s a winner,” Cassar said. “You could see he wanted to win that game, and not just participate or have a nice pass or two.
“He wanted to win, and what we need are 11 players on the field that want to win, and substitutes that will do anything it will take to help us win games. It’s not about being an individual, but about the team. We are going to need that going forward.”
Sam Garza gave Seattle 2 a 1-0 lead at the break, squeezing a ball between goalkeeper Jeff Attinella and the near post from an impossibly tight angle for the third Open Cup goal of his career. Garza collected the ball off a long throw-in from teammate Guiliano Frano, then beat his defender to the post on a shot from close to the end line.
But Plata and Morales spurred a fiery charge, even as Attinella broke the second-half huddle with about four minutes remaining on the halftime clock.
“I felt the first half wasn’t good enough and we needed a wake-up call,” said Attinella, who started in goal. “To everyone’s credit, that’s what happened. The guys responded.”
The 5-foot-2 Ecuadorian tied the game with a finish on Boyd Okwuonu’s cross in the 64th minute. Olmes Garcia paced a counterattack after Sounders 2 midfielder Pablo Rossi hit the post on a shot from distance just a minute before, and Plata was in the right place in the middle of the box to find the equalizer.
Garcia’s hustle set a stark contrast to his first-half performance, mirroring a renewed sense of urgency across the board coming out of the locker room.
“We just wanted more urgency and passion, more reactions. It wasn’t there in the first half,” Cassar said. “Credit to the players for coming out in the second half and stepping up. You get opportunities, and you have to seize them. The second half was a lot better than the first half.”
Plata nearly bagged another one in the 67th minute, going well up over Sounders 2 defender Guiliano Frano to head home Boyd Okwuonu’s cross. But Kerawala made the point-blank save, despite bumbling the ball in his hands after making the catch.
Plata led RSL with four shots, including three on goal that spurred his one-goal, one-assist effort in the first 90-minute match since suffering a foot injury in the preseason. Devon Sandoval, wearing the captain’s armband for his birthday, and Luis Gil added three shots each — but it was the second-half response that saw RSL threaten and help close the game down.
Cassar was forced into a first-half substitution when defender Justen Glad went down with concussion-like symptoms 10 minutes after knocking heads. Phanuel Kavita replaced him in the 38th minute, marking the first appearance by the Highland High graduate for the Real Salt Lake first team.
“We need to be careful,” Cassar said of Glad’s injury. “He said things went blurry in one eye, so we took him off.”
Attinella made four saves to preserve the victory, including a grab on Garza’s shot from distance with four minutes left in regulation that would’ve given Seattle a draw. RSL narrowly outshot the Sounders 2 side 12-10, even as most of its chances came after the halftime break.
“We had to win,” Morales said. “Before the game, if we thought it was going to be an easy game, we were wrong. Right now, we are happy because we did enough to advance.”
