Petke Credits Recent Success To Shift In Mentality
Sep 4, 2018, 10:32 PM | Updated: Sep 18, 2018, 6:53 pm
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SANDY, Utah – With a 3-1-1 record in its last five games, it’s clear that something has clicked for Real Salt Lake. With just seven games remaining before the playoffs, the team currently sits in fourth place in the Western Conference standings.
As for what has happened to put RSL on a hot streak, head coach Mike Petke says it’s been a matter of shifting into a different mindset.
“I think these are some guys that have to have, I don’t want to say backs against the wall, but something really tangible in front of them that they’re reading the standings or doing the math and they step their game up,” said Petke.
Petke conceded that he’d like the team to embrace that mentality from the start of the season, joking “I should put in my contract a million dollar bonus if I can get them, starting next year, to embrace that from the beginning.”
The second year coach did state that it wasn’t that the players weren’t into it, but that “there seems like a different vibe” adding, “I think that they (the players) like to feel a bit of pressure.”
The pressure will be on Saturday when RSL hosts Zlatan Ibahimovic and the LA Galaxy Saturday at 8 p.m. at Rio Tinto Stadium.
