by Greg Seltzer for Soccer365

Real Salt Lake midfield ace Kyle Beckerman says he took no special pleasure in helping to clinch the franchise's first ever playoff berth at the expense of former side Colorado.

The 26-year old, who was unhappily shipped out by the Rapids in a trade for Mehdi Ballouchy last summer, says past is prologue. For Beckerman, the joy from Saturday's decisive 1-1 draw in Denver was about his current team reaching new heights - not knocking down his former employers.

"I would have liked for both of us to get in," he told Soccer365. "I felt bad for them."

"This was about getting Salt Lake to the playoffs, not beating Colorado. There's no bad blood with Colorado, I still have friends over there."

"Whatever happened, I'm happy I'm with Salt Lake, and that's what got me here."

The Maryland native does admit to having too many thoughts to process at once swirling in his head the moment Yura Movsisyan punched their playoff pass with a 90th minute equalizer.
 
"There were a lot of things going through my mind," recalled Beckerman. "Number one was: 'we're going to the playoffs'. As soon as we scored to tie it up, I knew we did it."

For the U.S. international, the dramatic goal was both cause for celebration and a huge relief.

"We felt like we deserved it," admits Beckerman. We were kinda surprised we weren't in it already."

"There were other teams that had to go down to the last day, but we felt we had a better season than they did. Some of them struggled a long while, then made a run at the end to get into a playoff spot."

Whatever the road taken, Real Salt Lake are now headed for their first postseason and Beckerman claims they have nothing to lose.

"We're playing with house money now," he said. "Not a lot of people thought we were going to make the playoffs, so were just going to keep doing what we've been doing all season: fight and scratch and always try to play good soccer. We feel if we play our best, we can beat anybody."

Though he concedes it might have been nice to wrap up the playoff berth with games to spare, the fact that they had to battle until the final game could pay dividends when they host first round foe Chivas USA on Saturday.

"It was a little practice run," offers Beckerman. "We were kinda in the playoffs already. Hopefully, that will be something that keeps us sharp."

The team also enter the MLS second season high on confidence, much of which comes from having larcenous netminder Nick Rimando behind them. Beckerman believes any team hoping to win MLS Cup should expect to have their bacon saved a few times by the man in goal.

"You're going to have to weather some storms," he stated. "The other team will have some momentum and be all over you, and the keeper is going to have to make big saves. There's going to be a stage where we need that."

"You want to limit that as much as you can, but that's part of the game. We all feel confident in Nick. He makes big saves. It's a definite boost for us to have Nick back there, especially as he's a keeper who has already won a championship."

As for matching up over two games with Chivas USA, Beckerman has revealed that the Red & Blue Army will look to fire the opening salvo and work from there.

"You can get on top of them, but you have to put them out," he urged. "You have to get that goal and change the game."

"They play a good passing game," Beckerman warned of the Rojiblancos. "They work hard and are coached well by Preki. You've got to put them in difficult situations."

"If you can get a goal up on them, or even two, you gotta take those chances. Then they can't stay in their comfort zone," he concluded.

"We're going to be aggressive and put as much pressure on Chivas as we can, and see what happens."

Soccer365 reporter Greg Seltzer blogs daily over at No Short Corners.

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