Real Salt Lake started its season in style on Sunday night, getting a pair of goals from forward Alvaro Saborio to down defending Supporters’ Shield winners San Jose Earthquakes 2-0 at Buck Shaw Stadium
Here are a few interesting numbers from Sunday’s match:
100
Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Nick Rimando has 100 career MLS regular season shutouts after blanking the ‘Quakes on Sunday night. Rimando made two saves at Buck Shaw, including one fingertip stop on 2012 MVP Chris Wondolowski.
The 33-year-old Rimando is second all-time on the MLS career shutouts list, trailing only unsigned ‘keeper Kevin Hartman, who has 112 career clean-sheets.
300
RSL captain Kyle Beckerman made his 300th career regular season appearance on Sunday night, becoming the 20th player in league history to reach the mark.
Beckerman is the seventh player with RSL ties to hit 300 appearances, joining Jeff Cunningham (365), Chris Klein (333), RSL Head Scout Andy Williams (332), Rimando (320), Carey Talley (315) and RSL Head Coach Jason Kreis as former/current players in the exclusive club.
14
Real Salt Lake forward Alvaro Saborio’s two-goal performance on Sunday night gives him 14 career multi-goal games across all competitions for RSL.
31-5-5
RSL’s record when Saborio scores.
12
The number of passes RSL played in the build-up to Saborio’s second goal in the 85th minute. That’s a lot.
18
The Earthquakes entered Sunday’s match with an 18-game home regular season unbeaten streak. RSL squashed that, handing San Jose its first regular season loss in the Bay Area since August 2011.
4
RSL has now won four-consecutive MLS season openers. Three of those four wins have come at San Jose, with the Claret-and-Cobalt beating the ‘Quakes at Buck Shaw in 2010, 2011 and 2013. RSL – which is 4-2-3 all-time in season openers – beat L.A. in its 2012 season opener.
