2016 MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER OPENING DAY
PREGAME FACT & INFO SHEET
REAL SALT LAKE @ ORLANDO CITY SC
SUN., MARCH 6, 2016 – 12:00 noon MT – CITRUS BOWL
on KMYU, ESPN700 & 102.3 LaGranD / 1600 AM
1 – HOME GAME in the first month of the MLS season for RSL, which travels for 3 of its first 4 (including today) and 9 of its first 13 league matches this year … The glut of early-season road matches is due to a resurfacing of Rio Tinto Stadium in the month of May, with the venue re-opening to MLS and USL play on June 18 with an exact replica of the original field installed back in September, 2008 …
3 – GOALS NEEDED by returning RSL FW Yura Movsisyan to surpass former boss Jason Kreis and move into 8th all-time in the RSL golden boot race … Yura scored 15 league goals for RSL from 2007-09, prior to a six-year career in Denmark and Russia that saw him score another 77 across all competitions, including the Armenian National Team … Amongst active RSL players, Yura ranks fourth overall, behind Javier Morales (45), Kyle Beckerman (25) and Joao Plata (21) …
5 – OPENING-DAY MLS wins for RSL on the road in the previous 11 seasons, with all five wins coming at either LA or SJ from 2010-14, prior to last season’s 0-0 draw at Portland to kick off the campaign … Overall, RSL is 5-2-2 in league openers on the road …
6 – Today marks the SIXTH APPEARANCE that the rearguard of Tony Beltran, Aaron Maund, Jamison Olave and Demar Phillips have started and played together the last two seasons, including the Feb. 24 0-2 CCL loss at Tigres and the 2-0 home win last August against Seattle … The group – RSL is 2-3-0 overall with this back-line quartet – also put together a 1-0 home win in CCL action last year against Municipal, clinching quarterfinal passage … In league play, sandwiched around the Seattle clean sheet victory was the group’s debut, an 0-1 home loss to Portland – remembered for the Nat Borchers header at the death, coming 7 days prior to the impressive win over the Sounders – and an 0-2 loss at Dallas the week after stoning Seattle …
8 – All-time TURF ROAD WINS, as RSL owns a woeful 8-23-16 mark on the fake stuff across all competitions, being outscored 38-81 … RSL is 0-8-2 in its last 10 games across MLS and CCL play on the fake stuff, posting an 0-4-1 mark in each of the last two seasons … However, RSL’s greatest glory has come on an artificial surface, winning MLS Cup 2009 in a shootout against LA at what was then known as Qwest Field in Seattle …
9 – wins needed by RSL icon Nick Rimando this season to surpass all-time MLS leader Kevin Hartman for all-time victories … Rimando – already the all-time MLS leader in shutouts (123) by 11 over Hartman, despite playing 18 fewer games – could eclipse the longtime LA/DAL/KC/NY ‘keeper in several categories, including wins (needs 9 to surpass), starts (18), games (23) and minutes (1,648) … “The Wall of the Wasatch” is roughly ½ a season away from securing G.O.A.T. (“Greatest of All Time) status …
60 – GOALSCORERS in RSL’s 11-year, 126-player, 354-game league history to have scored at least one MLS goal for the Claret-and-Cobalt, now that FW Juan Manuel Martinez opened his MLS account last Sept. 12 in Houston … Martinez, nicknamed “Burrito,” joins a group that includes Brian Dunseth, Robbie Findley, Matias Mantilla, Kenny Deuchar, Pablo Campos, and Luke Mulholland to have scored in their first-ever MLS start for RSL; can Sunny join this group today? … Also, three RSL players – Luis Tejada, Kyle Brown and Paulo Junior – each scored in debut starts outside of league play …
98 – HOME WINS at #RioT since 2008, as RSL has amassed a 98-22-40 mark on home soil in all competitions in its last 160 home matches, during which it has outscored opponents by 168 goals (284-116) … Next Saturday marks RSL’s first home MLS match of 2016 at Rio Tinto Stadium, the club amassing a 77-17-36 record in MLS reg. season games (231-95 goals), and an 8-1-2 CCL mark (21-7), a 5-2-2 playoff resume (11-4), and an 8-2-0 ledger in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup (21-10) …
127 – players to have represented the Claret-and-Cobalt in MLS ACTION in the club’s first 12 seasons, as MF Stephen Sunday Obayan – nicknamed “Sunny” – become #127 today as he starts the 2016 opener at Orlando … Last year saw HC Jeff Cassar give several players – Justen Glad, Phanuel Kavita, Boyd Okwuonu, Elias Vasquez, Demar Phillips, Sebastian Saucedo & Pecka – their MLS debuts … 28 players saw league minutes last year, meaning everyone on the roster except GK Lalo Fernandez (MF Fito Ovalle was on a season-long loan to the USL Monarchs) participated in league action …
211 – MF Javier Morales made his 211th MLS reg. season appearance in the 2015 finale at Seattle, extending his lone possession of 3rd place all-time, joining a 200+ reg. season games played-group that includes Nick Rimando (249), Kyle Beckerman (231), Nat Borchers (205) and the returning Chris Wingert (204) ... Morales now has a franchise-high 18 game-winning assists (1 ahead of Captain Kyle Beckerman) and 76 assists overall to go with his 45 career goals, the Argentine MF responsible for nearly 25% of the club’s all-time 473 MLS goals, despite missing all of the 2005/06 seasons and most of both 2007 & 2011 …
379 – career MLS regular-season appearances for RSL Captain Kyle Beckerman, the most amongst all-time field players in the 20-year old history of Major League Soccer (MLS) … Last October 17 against Dallas, Beckerman surpassed former Tampa Bay Mutiny and New England Revolution icon Steve Ralston (378) in career MLS games played; this season, Kyle needs 23 starts and 1,735 minutes played to surpass Ralston in those service categories, with the Crofton, Maryland native looking up to only MLS goalkeepers Kevin Hartman (416 GP / 411 GS / 37,260 minutes) and active/long-time teammate Nick Rimando (395 / 395 / 35,703) …
60,000+ – today marks the FIRST-EVER and LARGEST CROWD that has hosted RSL in a match, and is just the 3rd occasion that RSL has played before more than 50,000 fans, both previous iterations in 2-goal losses at Seattle in 2015 (1-3) and 2013 (0-2) … RSL’s finale last year to close out the season was attended by 55,435 at C-Link … two other RSL visits to Seattle have seen the club play before more than the 45,511 from August, 2006 at Rice-Eccles Stadium in SLC, when RSL lost, 0-2, to Real Madrid (SPN) in an international exhibition, the largest soccer crowd ever in the state of Utah …
