Real Salt Lake had six players away on international duty over the weekend, with the final matches being played on Tuesday night.
After Nick Rimando and Kyle Beckerman returned from the U.S. National Team following a 3-2 extra time defeat to Mexico on Saturday, that left Luis Gil and Boyd Okwuonu with the U.S. U-23s at Olympic qualifying at Rio Tinto Stadium, Elias Vasquez with Guatemala for a pair of friendlies and Abdoulie Mansally with The Gambia for World Cup qualifiers.
Gil and Okwuonu both played on Tuesday in a 2-0 win for the U.S. over Canada that will send the Americans to a two-match playoff with Colombia in March to determine the final berth in the Olympics next summer in Brazil.
For Guatemala, Vasquez played 90 minutes in draws against Honduras on Thursday and El Salvador on Tuesday before returning to Utah.
The Gambia was eliminated from 2018 FIFA World Cup contention on Tuesday, suffering a 2-1 loss in Namibia to lose the CAF First Round series 3-2 on aggregate.
RSL defender Abdoulie Mansally played the first half in Tuesday’s defeat, leaving the match with the match level at 1-1. Namibia scored the series-clinching goal in the 63rd minute. In the first leg on Saturday, Mansally was on the bench, but did not appear in a 1-1 draw.
Namibia advances to face Tunisia in the second round.
On the youth level, RSL-AZ Academy products Evan Waldrep and Aaron Herrera both started for the U.S. U-20 National Team in a pair of draws against Scotland and Mexico in Germany this week. Herrera played the full match in a 2-2- draw against Scotland on Friday and the 3-3 finale with Mexico on Monday while Waldrep logged 65 minutes against Scotland and 63 minutes against Mexico.
Against Scotland, the U.S. took a 2-1 lead in the 21st minute only to see Scotland equalize in the 69th minute. While it was the Americans staging a comeback against Mexico, getting a stoppage-time equalizer on a penalty scored by Mukwelle Akale for his second goal of the match.
