Real Salt Lake opens preseason on Monday when the team departs to Casa Grande, Arizona for the first of four different locations for camp as the club gets ready for the 2017 MLS season, kicking off March 4 at Rio Tinto Stadium against Toronto FC.
It’s bound to be a different looking team that takes the field, with many young faces joining the roster this off-season and others pressed into greater roles after the departures of some key pieces. However, nine of 11 starters for RSL will return in 2017 and several other players are competing for starting roles all over the field. So as the team boards the Arizona-bound plane on Monday, it will be with a clearer picture of what is expected and how to succeed. It all starts in preseason, though, and Casa Grande is the perfect location to drive the players to shift their focuses to working together in the team.
“That’s why preseason is so important,” RSL Head Coach Jeff Cassar said. “When everyone is sweating and working hard together and doing double days, that’s where a lot of respect – that’s where a lot of team building takes place. And that’s why I want to get everybody in as quick as possible.”
Nick Rimando and Kyle Beckerman remain important leaders in RSL’s locker and while Rimando will be away at U.S. National Team camp, Beckerman will carry the torch. Others, such as Yura Movsisyan, Tony Beltran and Chris Wingert also provide the veteran savvy to help the younger players that have joined the core of RSL’s roster.
With the addition of Albert Rusnák - who will join the team upon receiving his visa – RSL now has ten players under contract that are 24 years old and younger. Add in three additional draft picks in Reagan Dunk, Justin Schmidt and Andrew Putna, and those aforementioned veterans will have plenty of players to integrate.
“We’ve made some big changes this offseason in terms of the roster. We’ve made some big changes in terms of how we set ourselves up to advance the roster as well,” RSL General Manager Craig Waibel said. “We’re in position now to focus on some more players that continue our development and continue to make us better as a team. We’ve had to make some very difficult decisions, but decisions that put us into an optimistic outlook moving forward.”
One of the big questions facing RSL is how the club will fill the void left by the departures of Javier Morales and Juan Manuel Martinez. After adding Rusnák, the attacking midfielder role has been accounted for. Meanwhile on the right wing, the expectation is that Jordan Allen will slot into the XI. In making those moves, RSL dropped the average age of the attacking four from 30 in the MLS Cup Playoff defeat to the LA Galaxy to 24.25 if Rusnák and Allen start with Movsisyan and Joao Plata in the season opener on March 4 against Toronto FC
That fits tremendously into Waibel’s plan in the offseason to get younger legs in the lineup.
“We return nine of 11 starters from last year’s team so the continuity really isn’t something we fear,” Waibel said. “Now it’s a matter of developing a couple young players and making them goal-dangerous consistently.”
RSL will likely have some players away at the start of camp, but also plans to make some additions to the roster as well. In addition to Rimando’s absence for international duty, defenders Justen Glad and Danilo Acosta and midfielder Sebastian Saucedo are with the U.S. U-20 National Team and will join the club later during the trip to Arizona.
Rusnák will also not be available to start camp as he completes his required immigration paperwork. Getting the 22-year-old in camp sooner than later will be crucial to integrating him with his new teammates.
“We want to get Albert in as quickly as possible so he can start to adapt to the way we play and the league,” Cassar said. “Especially in preseason. It’s a good preseason because we play all MLS teams.”
Real Salt Lake will have three different segments to its preseason training schedule, starting in Casa Grande and Tucson, Arizona, before later trips to Portland, Oregon, and Irvine, California. While in Arizona, RSL will face the New York Red Bulls on January 31 and San Jose Earthquakes on February 3.
