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Salt Lake earns rare road win, 1-0 over Wizards

Aug 30, 2009 - 3:13 PM KANSAS CITY, Kan. (STATS) - Real Salt Lake took stock at halftime: They were down to 10 men, with a backup keeper in goal and an atrocious franchise history on the road.

No worries.

"We always play a man down against a full side in training," said keeper Chris Seitz, who made seven saves and recorded his first career victory in Saturday night's 1-0 win over the Kansas City Wizards. "We've done that 30 or 40 times this year. So when that happened, we said, 'We've been here before.'"

Pablo Campos scored in the 18th minute for Real (9-9-6), which won on the road for just the 10th time since entering MLS as an expansion franchise in 2005.

Salt Lake had to play short-handed after the 42nd minute, when midfielder Ned Grabavoy drew a straight red card for a foul on Kansas City's Davy Arnaud. The victory wasn't assured until forward Fabian Espindola cleared Zoltan Hercegfavi's header out of the goal mouth in the closing seconds of second-half stoppage time.

"We continue to talk about battling, having a fighting mentality," Real coach Jason Kreis said. "Tonight was a great example of a team believing in itself and being willing to work for results."

It didn't hurt that Kreis' side was facing a team that hasn't scored yet this month and hasn't won since beating New England 3-1 on June 13.

Kansas City suffered its fourth consecutive shutout loss and saw its winless streak reach seven matches. The Wizards (5-10-6) have not scored in 424 minutes since the first half of a 1-all draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy on July 25. They have been outscored 11-0 since and lost Saturday night despite outshooting Real 17-5, including an 8-3 advantage in shots on goal.

"I just moved to midfielder, but I've played forward my whole life," Kansas City's Herculez Gomez said. "I can tell you that when you don't score goals, it's going to affect you. It does weigh on us. There are teams that have a certain swagger, and right now we're looking to find it."

Campos' goal, on assists from Robbie Russell and Andy Williams, came after he found a seam in Kansas City's central defense. He slipped unmarked up the middle, took a short diagonal cross from Williams and easily beat keeper Kevin Hartman from 8 yards.

"It was just a complete breakdown," said interim coach Peter Vermes, who has seen his team go 0-3 since he took over Aug. 4 for the fired Curt Onalfo. "They only had one guy up, so everything was a breakdown from side to side. Everybody was late. They just kept passing the ball and eventually they found the last guy sitting there by himself on top of the box."

Besides Grabavoy's mandatory suspension for his ejection, Real Salt Lake captain Kyle Beckerman will serve a one-match suspension for yellow card accumulation. The U.S. national team midfielder drew a caution late in the first half for fouling the Wizards' Matt Besler.