HERRIMAN, Utah (Fri., March 7, 2025) – Real Salt Lake (1-1-0, 3 points, West 8 MLS) continues the home portion of its 21st Major League Soccer season Saturday night at America First Field against 2025 MLS expansion side, San Diego FC (1-0-1, 4 points, West 4 MLS), now the 15th team in the MLS Western Conference. Tickets are available at www.RSL.com/tickets for the evening tilt, set for 7:30p MT.
RSL remains at America First Field this weekend, looking to build upon last week’s 2-0 home win over Seattle Sounders FC, a game that saw RSL GK Rafael Cabral and the defense register the Club’s second clean sheet in four overall matches this season, while FW Forster Ajago scored in a second consecutive match with a late-game dagger, the young Ghanaian forward’s first-ever MLS goal. MF Diogo Gonçalves registered the assist on the Ajago insurance goal, with Ajago coming on late and scoring off the bench in place of Australian FW Ari Piol, one of six RSL players to have made his RSL debut during the first two weeks of the 2025 season.
While Saturday’s match in Sandy is expected to host a capacity crowd of 20,000-plus, the game will also be available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with David James – the perennial Utah Broadcaster of the Year candidate making his Apple/MLS debut – reunited with Brian Dunseth (ENG) on the call, as are Jorge Perez-Navarro & Marcelo Balboa (SPN).
Real Salt Lake owns an all-time record of 9-3-3 (W-L-T) against expansion sides making their initial visits to the Utah side’s Sandy venue over the previous 15 seasons, with only St. Louis, Cincinnati and LAFC able to grab the full three points at what is now known as America First Field.
Last week’s win over Seattle enabled RSL to snap a two-game losing streak across multiple competitions to open the 2025 campaign, rebounding from an 0-4 loss at San Jose Earthquakes on Feb. 22 and a midweek 1-2 elimination loss to Herediano in CONCACAF Champions Cup. With last Saturday’s win, RSL improved to 10W-2L-9T record at home in its MLS curtain-raisers (dropping just 2018/LAFC and 2023/ATX). Also, the Claret-and-Cobalt victory extended its regular-season dominance at home over Seattle, improving to 13W-1L-4T mark all-time against the Sounders on Utah soil, where the Rave Green have not won since 2011 in reg. season action (SEA did win the road leg at RSL by a 1-0 score in the 2012 Playoff series).
With last week’s victory over Seattle, RSL improved its record during the Pablo Mastroeni era to 35 wins and 12 draws against just five losses when scoring first. One of the hallmarks of RSL under Mastroeni’s guidance been its ability to bounce back from losses, dropping just 11 back-to-back scenarios across all competitions in Pablo’s 143 overall games managed since August, 2021.
Again this week, the Claret-and-Cobalt seek a return to fortress-like protection of home soil, where a year ago RSL lost just three home games across all competitions, posting an impressively dominant 12-3-5 / 40-point mark in 2024.
During each of Pablo’s previous three full seasons at the RSL helm, the Club has increased its annual point total (47 in 2022, 50 in 2023 and 59 last year), while increasing its Western Conference table position as well (7th in 2022, 5th in 2023 and 3rd last year). The 2025 campaign features RSL’s pursuit of a Conference-best fifth consecutive postseason berth, a seventh in the last eight seasons and its 15th in the last 18 years.
Mastroeni earned his 50th win across all competitions with RSL in a 4-3 decision last June at Kansas City, with his 3rdreg. season win this season marking his 50th with RSL. During his entire MLS coaching career – which includes the 2014-17 years at Colorado – former U.S. World Cup stalwart Mastroeni has amassed 98 wins, 107 losses and 74 draws across all competitions for the Rocky Mountain clubs.
This season, Real Salt Lake returns nearly 21,000 collective minutes played from last year’s roster, as the Club looks to build upon a record-setting 2024 campaign, as last year saw RSL advance to the MLS Cup Playoffs for a fourth consecutive occasion, the sixth time in seven seasons (2020 the lone exception), and for the 14th time in the last 17 seasons since first qualifying in 2008 (2015, 2017 the other outliers). The 2024 MLS regular season reached an all-time high of 59 points for RSL, which finished third in the Western Conference and sixth overall in the 29-team MLS shield race, while also establishing a new all-time scoring high of 65 goals.
