Javier Morales has been a valuable piece on Real Salt Lake’s roster since he came to the club in 2007.
This year, that importance seems to be heightened as the 35-year-old midfielder nears the halfway point of his ninth season in the Claret-and-Cobalt. He has agelessly led the team with three goals and three assists in the regular season, and on Tuesday, his goal in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup vaulted RSL to the Round of 16.
It’s a quality and characteristic that isn’t lost on RSL Head Coach Jeff Cassar.
“He’s a winner. You could see he wanted to win that game, not just participate in it, not just have a nice pass or this or that. He wanted to win,” Cassar said after RSL’s 2-1 win over Seattle Sounders FC 2 of the USL, noting that Morales epitomizes the club’s “Team is the Star” mantra. “What we need is 11 players on the field that want to win and then the substitutions that are willing to do anything that it’s going to take to help us win games. It’s not about being an individual, it’s about being a team, and we’re going to need that going forward.”
Morales played 32 minutes in RSL’s fourth-round Open Cup match, but if he had his way he would have been on the field from the start. With a rigorous schedule ahead, Cassar opted instead to use him on the bench despite his protestations, though and he made an instant impact on RSL’s control of the match.
While Cassar is thinking of the team’s long-term future with Morales in the lineup, Morales is viewing each match as an opportunity to play the game he loves knowing that he is getting closer and closer to retirement with each passing match.
“I’m 35 years old you know and I don’t know how many or how much games I have left, so I want to play like everything,” Morales said after the match. “I’m happy to play. Open Cup, regular game, Champions League. Everything.”
He has been vital for RSL, too. He has amassed 40 goals and 68 assists in 195 regular season matches. Since 2013, he has 20 goals and 25 assists and in that time, RSL has gone 27-15-21. More importantly, the club has been just 8-8-4 when he doesn’t start in that same time.
Now with another important stretch of games coming up, he is hitting his stride again.
RSL faces Sporting Kansas City on Sunday in an 8 p.m. MT start from Rio Tinto Stadium.
