Crooks: NYCFC-Real Salt Lake Match Holds Special Meaning For Jason Kreis

By Glenn Crooks
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Jason Kreis closes the profile portion on his Twitter account with the Latin words "Audentes Fourtuna Juvat."

That phrase was painted outside the home locker room at Rio Tinto Stadium, the dwelling for Real Salt Lake.  Translated, it means "Fortune Favors the Bold."

Kreis was the first player signed by RSL in 2005 and scored the franchise's initial goal that year. He retired as a player to become their head coach about a third of the way through the 2007 season.  At 34 years old, Kreis was the youngest coach in the history of MLS. He guided the nascent franchise to a remarkable six consecutive playoff appearances, which included the MLS Cup Championship in 2009 and the 2013 MLS Cup Finals, losing to Sporting KC in penalties.

One week after the agonizing defeat at Kansas City, Kreis and his wife, Kim, made a bold move and accepted the head coaching position with the expansion New York City FC.

"I didn't want to have any more regrets," Kreis told me during a break from preseason in South Carolina this past February. "I look back and I didn't take the risk as a player and maybe go overseas for a trial to see if I could compete in Europe."

It was Kreis who planted the Latin mantra for the Claret and Cobalt of RSL, but he had pondered his own adherence to the vital phrase when speaking to Bill Riley of ESPN 700 in Salt Lake City after he re-signed in 2013.

"Maybe it had never really been there for my personal life and my career," said the 1999 league MVP while playing for FC Dallas. "This, I think, is a pretty bold decision and could easily be viewed as a pretty large risk."

For the first time in 18 months, Kreis returns to Sandy, Utah replete with former RSL assistants and players.  NYCFC meets RSL on Saturday night. (Airtime is 9:45 p.m., beginning with the pregame and my regular interview with Kreis on WFAN.)

When the 20,000-plus spectators enter Rio Tinto on Saturday, they can peer upward to see the name "Jason Kreis" adorning the stadium walls.  Kreis, the symbol of success for the club, had his No. 9 retired by RSL in 2011.

Predictably, Kreis is reluctant to focus on his return, especially when you consider that NYCFC has been unable to earn three points in any of its last nine matches.  Regardless, this fixture does not fit the category of "just another match." Not when you consider the relationships forged by Kreis and his assistants, Miles Joseph and CJ Brown, as well as players Sebastian Valesquez, Josh Saunders, Kwame Watson-Siriboe, Ned Grabavoy and Chris Wingert, who ranks fourth all time with 204 appearances with RSL.

"I think strange is a good word for it," said Wingert, who still owns a condo in nearby Park City. "It's one of the first things I looked at on the schedule, to see if they were coming here or we were going out there.  It's cool to go back out with some mixed emotions."

Kreis offered just a bit of nostalgia after training on Wednesday, referring specifically to the similar challenges he now faces as the guide of the NYC program.

"I have a lot of incredible memories there and a lot of close friends," said Kreis. "When I finish my career, I can look back and be very proud of my time at RSL. I've begun this process again here (at NYCFC) and certainly have a short memory, because when I think back how difficult that was ... it took a lot of time, a lot of hard work, a lot of tears, and everything that goes into that."

"The first two transfer windows, we changed 21 of 28 players," Garth Lagerway explained at halftime of the recent Seattle-NYCFC match at Yankee Stadium.

Lagerway is the president of soccer for Seattle and the former general manager at Real Salt Lake.  He and Kreis built RSL jointly beginning in 2007.

"I'm hoping maybe we can do that again here (at NYCFC)," said Kreis. "And maybe to a bigger extent. Maybe if we're a team at the top of the table now, we could do more reminiscing.  Right now for me, I'm very, very focused on the game and trying to help my team improve."

NYCFC is second to last in the Eastern Conference table with a 1-6-4 mark.  Only the Montreal Impact, with just six matches played, sits beneath New York City.

Throw-Ins

-Former Utah Jazz President Dave Checketts was the majority owner of RSL from its inception until 2013.

-In RSL's expansion season, 2005, they finished with a record of 5-22-5. With five losses and a draw in their first six matches of 2006, RSL had gone 18 consecutive matches without a victory – still an MLS record.  Three years later they were MLS Champions under Kreis.

- RSL is the only MLS team that has qualified for the playoffs in each of the last seven seasons.

-In the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, New York City FC will play the winner of the NASL Cosmos/PDL Jersey Express match. If the Cosmos win, it will set up a New York derby at Hofstra University on Tuesday, June 16.

Glenn Crooks is the color commentator for New York City FC on WFAN and the former head soccer coach at Rutgers University. You can follow him on Twitter @GlennCrooks and glenncrooks.sportsblog.com.