Never mind how it happened. Real Salt Lake is in the MLS playoffs and determined to take advantage of the opportunity

Herriman • In a Major League Soccer minute, everything can change.

After Real Salt Lake lost its final game of the regular season, hopes were slim and expectations were low. Moments after the loss, coach Mike Petke said the team had a “one-in-a-million chance” of making the playoffs. The website FiveThirtyEight gave RSL a 44 percent chance.

And when the Houston Dynamo fell behind by two goals in the first half Sunday against the L.A. Galaxy, it felt like RSL’s season was just about over. Fans wrote eulogies for the team’s season on Twitter. Even some of the team’s players succumbed to those feelings. Both Kyle Beckerman and Brooks Lennon said Monday after training that the odds were stacked against them.

But then the second half happened. Three goals by the Dynamo equaled a playoff berth for RSL. During the last 10 minutes of Houston’s win over the L.A. Galaxy on Sunday, Real Salt Lake’s players took to their phones to celebrate and congratulate each other via group text, Damir Kreilach said.

But elation was soon followed by realization that Thursday’s knockout-round game against LAFC could be the team’s biggest challenge yet. Because Real’s position wasn’t secure until the final day of the regular season and it heads into the playoffs as the lowest seed, Petke knows what lies ahead for his team.

“We are by far the underdog in this game,” Petke said. “Not only by seeding, but … by the two games we played this year, by where they finished.”

But RSL has been an underdog before. In 2009, it limped into the playoffs with a losing record and ended up winning the MLS cup.

A championship was far from Real’s collective consciousness on Monday, but there was a sense that it felt confident heading into Thursday.

“I don’t feel like we’re the underdog at all,” Lennon said. “No one in the entire season was undefeated, so any team can be beaten.”

Beckerman said he only watched a little bit of Sunday’s game. But when the final whistle blew, he immediately looked forward to the opportunity that RSL had against LAFC.

“It’s kind of like we’re playing with house money,” Beckerman said.

RSL played two games against LAFC in the regular season and lost both times, 5-1 and 2-0. But RSL, it appears, has decided to put those games behind it and treat the knockout round as a new season — one that starts and may finish against the first-year expansion team.

“Playoffs are 100 percent a different story,” Lennon said. “It’s a whole different ballgame. We’re going into this game with a clean slate against them with our record. Anything can happen ... and I really do believe we have the talent and quality to get a win.”