SALT LAKE CITY -- The Crew has weathered plenty of rough patches on its way to the top of Major League Soccer.

It stumbled through a 369-minute scoreless streak last year and began this season 0-2-5, the worst start ever by a defending champion. It allowed late goals that led to ties or losses throughout the spring and early summer.

No slump has been as poorly timed as the latest swoon, punctuated by a 1-0 loss at Real Salt Lake on Saturday in Game 1 of an Eastern Conference semifinal.

A loss or a tie Thursday in Crew Stadium will eliminate the defending champion Crew from the two-game, total-goal first-round series.

"During the season, sometimes you're in a position where everything you do is not working," Crew coach Robert Warzycha said. "Maybe that's the time that we are in right now."

A once-potent offense is out of order. The Crew has lost three consecutive 1-0 games and has been blanked in four of the past five.

Anticipating an ugly and physical contest and content to leave Salt Lake with a 0-0 tie, the Crew employed a lineup that included its most physical forwards, Steven Lenhart and Emilio Renteria.

"Bangers," said one Crew staffer. "We wanted bangers out there."

Diminutive MLS MVP Guillermo Barros Schelotto is not a banger. He is the most talented player ever to wear a Crew uniform. He was confined to the bench Saturday.

Schelotto (two goals and no assists since June) is slumping, as is the entire Crew attack.

Left winger Robbie Rogers was invisible at times. Renteria appeared confused and was indecisive with the ball. Late subs Emmanuel Ekpo and Jason Garey did no better. Warzycha did not use a third sub.

Crew general manager Mark McCullers defended the decision to bench Schelotto, a $775,000 designated player. He said the coaching staff's strategy, to occupy two central defenders with blitzing strikers and take advantage of any chances such havoc might create, was sound.

"I think in the past defenders have been able to key on one forward and our wingers haven't been dangerous enough," McCullers said. "That's all a part of us not being in synch overall.

"It should have been 0-0 at the end of the day."

The Crew defense kept the "0" for 87 minutes. In the 88th, it had a five-second breakdown and conceded a candy-snatcher to Salt Lake forward Robbie Findley, who beat defender Eric Brunner and out-of-position keeper William Hesmer to the near post and slid into the winner.

Lenhart was the hero of a playoff-opening 1-1 tie at Kansas City last season when he scored in second-half stoppage time but a stunned Crew could muster no such chances in Rio Tinto Stadium.

"This doesn't change things too much," said Crew captain Frankie Hejduk, who was late to contest a cross by Yura Movsisyan that was the game-winning assist.

"We weren't going to be playing for a tie at home anyway. When we play at Crew Stadium we play to win. Now we have to win. That's the playoffs. That's how it works."

smitchell@dispatch.com