Left midfield has been a problem for Real Salt Lake (3-9-4, 5th in Western Conference) all season long, RSL head coach John Ellinger said in his interview at Rice-Eccles Stadium, following his team’s dramatic come-from-behind performance to tie the MetroStars 2-2 before a crowd of more than 20,000 on Independence Day.
During the game, Seth Trembly, all 5-feet-6-inches and 140 lbs of him, got the tough position 76 minutes after the opening whistle blew. The job: to solidify an anemic left midfield and to provide a spark to the team, which it surely needed after losing defender Brian Dunseth to a controversial red card offense in the first half and trailing 2-0. RSL was down to 10 men on the pitch, and time was running out.
It had been eight days since the RSL squad had last touched grass, or turf, in a first-team MLS game-the reserves had played last week in Spokane, Wash., and won 3-1-and a big crowd was expected for the Fourth of July tilt.
The Fourth is traditionally a time for Americans to remember those who have sacrificed so that we may continue to enjoy our freedom. How fitting, then, that a native from Littleton, Colo., a town that experienced one of the worst tragedies in U.S. history, picked such an occasion to rise above the maelstrom of reporters whining about the lack of midfield production and do something about it.
Before the fireworks actually started going off, the last 14 minutes of the match got under way, sending Trembly off on a pyrotechnic show of his own as he raced down the left flank and delivered ball after ball into the center of the pitch, eventually getting a chance of his own, which he smacked home, unassisted, just two minutes after he got into the game.
Jason Kreis followed with a penalty kick in the 90th minute to get RSL the tie.
Trembly’s rsum to this point was pretty impressive: stints on the U.S. under-17, under-20 and under-23 national teams, an MLS contract and a four-year career (four goals, two assists, 2,519 minutes), all with the Colorado Rapids until this year when he was traded to Real Salt Lake.
Trembly’s performance on Monday was similar to what he did versus Chivas USA on May 18, the last time RSL won a game. Trembly was a firework of sorts, creating as many scoring chances as anybody else had on the Real Salt Lake team and giving Utah’s expansion team exactly what it needed: consistent play on the weak left flank.
“Seth was the spark that we needed, and he did a great job scoring the goal,” Ellinger said after the game. “His job going into the game was to go in and take over the left side of the field and that is what he ended up doing.”