Kyle Beckerman started Real Salt Lake's regular season game against the Houston Dynamo on Wednesday from an unfamiliar vantage point.
Available for the game, Beckerman began it on the bench. It was his first time not starting a game in which he was available for RSL since August 18, 2012, meaning he had started 152 consecutive appearances in league play.
But in spite of the new role, the midfielder made it count, coming off the bench in the 64th minute and scoring the winning goal in a 2-1 victory at Rio Tinto Stadium.
Following the match, Beckerman told reporters he resisted the plan set in motion by RSL head coach Mike Petke.
"I fought back a little bit, but he’s the coach so you respect it and get ready to do whatever you can to help the team," he said. "That’s what the mindset was.”
Petke also acknowledged the longtime captain was not pleased at first he would be coming off the bench for the game.
“Kyle wasn’t the easiest guy to go talk to yesterday to tell him my plan," he told reporters. "I mentioned it to him a week ago and he kind of laughed it off and brushed it off, we had a joke about it, but this was the plan all along. For him to come on in that situation and not only hold down the fort a bit but get the winning goal was amazing. Kyle is our engine; he is our leader."
With a busy stretch of fixtures for RSL, including another game on Saturday, at home against the Seattle Sounders (9:30 pm ET | Full TV & Streaming Info), Petke stood by his decision to give Beckerman some time off.
"The work that he does, if I showed you the printouts of the workload that we track throughout the week, he is far above the hardest worker on this team and I just needed to force the rest for him,” he said.
