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Real Salt Lake-Wizards Preview

Aug 28, 2009 - 6:34 PM By MATT BEARDMORE STATS Writer

Real Salt Lake (8-9-6) at Kansas City (5-9-6), 8:30 p.m. EDT

Due mainly to its strong play at home, Real Salt Lake is in position to make a run at a postseason berth.

On Saturday night, RSL will try to avenge its only home loss of the season as it goes for its first-ever win visiting the Kansas City Wizards.

Real Salt Lake (8-9-6) improved to 7-1-4 at Rio Tinto Stadium with Wednesday's 4-0 victory over Chivas USA. The club's only home loss was 2-0 to Kansas City on May 16.

Making his first start with RSL after being acquired from San Jose on July 15, forward Pablo Campos scored his first goal with his new club Wednesday on a cross from Fabian Espindola in the 43rd minute.

"I was told at the beginning that it would take me a while before I got in the rhythm and got to know the players and they got to know me," said Campos, who made five appearances for RSL prior to Wednesday's start. "Now I think we're getting there."

Forward Robbie Findley started the previous three matches, but he substituted for Campos in the 67th minute and scored twice. Findley is tied for second in MLS with 10 goals.

"If I come in off the bench I just want to be able to provide a little spark and energy for my team, and hopefully tire the defense out a little more," Findley said. "I was able to do that tonight."

While RSL has moved into a fifth-place tie with Colorado in the Western Conference standings, it is 1-8-2 on the road in 2009 and 0-3-1 all-time at Kansas City.

RSL has lost three straight away from home since a 1-all tie with Houston on June 20, but now faces a Kansas City club that has scored once during its current 0-4-2 stretch.

The Wizards (5-9-6) were dealt their third straight shutout Saturday, 1-0 at last-place San Jose.

"I thought that we did more than enough to earn a point here today," interim coach Peter Vermes said. "We created some really good chances in the first half. We should have put something away from there. ... But our performance, from last week to this week, it was a huge improvement."

Kansas City, however, has scored the league's second-fewest goals with 20.

"Right now, it's just a lot of frustration," goalkeeper Kevin Hartman told the Wizards' official Web site. "We definitely had opportunities tonight, we weathered the storm a little bit there in the first half and I thought put ourselves in a position where we could take at least a point away on the road."

Kansas City has been shut out three times in its last five home matches.

Wizards forward Josh Wolff has not scored since his two-goal effort versus RSL in May, but still leads the team with six.

Real Salt Lake's Will Johnson will miss Saturday's match due to yellow-card accumulation.