Justin Meram Relinquished Shootout Position To Allow Homegrown Heroics In RSL Playoff Win

SALT LAKE CITY – Justen Glad scored the sixth and final penalty to beat Seattle and send Real Salt Lake onto the conference semifinals, but he was never meant to take the penalty he confessed on The Bill Riley Show.

“Honestly I wasn’t even on the initial list,” Glad stated. “After Marcelo [Silva] took his PK I asked Meram if he was next and he was like yea but if you want it and I was like no, no, like if you want it you can take it and we both did that like twice and eventually I said screw it I will take it. I stepped up there, scored, and wow, what a feeling,” he added.

Meram confirmed what Glad stated by Tweeting that he “wanted to make the RSL homegrown a hero.”

Wanted to make the RSL homegrown a hero 🦸‍♂️ https://t.co/S8owu7JdIY

— Justin Meram (@JustinMeram) November 24, 2021

Of the six penalty kick takers for Real Salt Lake, three of them were defenders. Aaron Herrera began the proceedings, Marcelo Silva was the fifth penalty kick taker and Glad finished the job with a strike that deflected off the gloves of Sounders goalkeeper Stefan Frei before ricocheting off both posts before creeping over the goal line and into the back of the net.

“Oh my goodness, my heart stopped for a second for sure,” Glad said when asked to describe what was going through his mind when he saw the ball trickle into the back of the net. “I was just sitting there praying please go in, please go in and sure enough it hit the post and went in and then just excitement. I’m still on a high right now, just buzzing.”

Next Match

Real Salt Lake will now travel to Children’s Mercy Park for a date with Sporting Kansas City in one of just two conference semifinal fixtures.

The match is scheduled for Sunday, November 28 with kickoff at 1 p.m.

The match will be available to watch via ABC or ESPN Deportes.