From the start, it just seemed like a match that one goal would win. After all, the evening’s opponents just so happened to be winless (0-4-0) on the road, without a single goal to their name. But unfortunately for United, that vital tally never came — the team couldn’t avenge their loss to Real Salt Lake earlier this season and sent 16,089 away kissing their sisters after last night’s 0-0 draw at RFK.

“I wanna win so bad,” lamented defender Marc Burch after the match. “I’ll do anything.”

Indeed, while one would be hard pressed to necessarily quantify United’s performance this year as poor, as they headed into last night’s game tied for first place in the Eastern Conference. But their performance at home has been striking: after yesterday, a record of 2-0-4 — without a loss, sure, but just far too many draws, points which will be missed as the team enters an upcoming one and a half month stretch of difficult road games.

But a scoreless draw was just fine with Real Salt Lake, who obviously came into the match willing to settle for their first positive road result of the season.

“We talked about them bunkering, and they did just that. They bunkered very deep…and we kind of lulled ourselves to sleep, and quit moving,” Coach Tom Soehn said post game.

Of course, the reason that United was even able to earn a point last night was goalkeeper Josh Wicks. After a fairly questionable performance on Wednesday in the Cup victory over New York, Soehn handed Wicks the start — and he provided a tremendous performance.

Showing no signs of the tentative goalkeeping which he provided on Wednesday, Wicks bullied straight out and kept Real striker Robbie Findley from beating him on a broken offside trap in the first half. He also came to the rescue in the second forty-five, putting on a highlight display in net: a powerful punch and a flying grab, diving to deny Kyle Beckerman’s dipping knuckler, and parrying away Findlay’s headed effort off an ensuing corner.

“As a keeper, it’s always good to get consistency, get a rhythm. Being a keeper, it’s important to be consistent,” Wicks said.

Or as Soehn put it, Wicks “did what he needed to do to win us a game.”