HERRIMAN, UT (Monday, March 2, 2026) – Following an eight-save performance which backstopped Real Salt Lake to a 2-1 win over Seattle Sounders FC in Saturday’s 2026 home opener, RSL Captain and GK Rafael Cabral has been named to MLSsoccer.com’s Week 2 “Team of the Matchday” starting XI. Eighteen-year-old Utah native and homegrown sensation Zavier Gozo was also recognized as a bench selection for the fictional weekly honor, following his game-winning assist to FW Ari Piol early in the second-half, as well as his dynamic creativity throughout the night.
Cabral - last year’s RSL Team MVP as voted on by his peers and the lone player to appear in every single one of 3,600 minutes a year ago while starting all 40 matches of 2025 - denied several dangerous Seattle chances early and late, thrilling the 20,660 in attendance at America First Field in the Club’s Feb. 28 opener, its earliest MLS curtain-raiser in 22 seasons.
With the win, RSL improved to 11 wins and nine draws against just two losses all-time in 22 season openers on Utah soil, while extending its impressive home regular-season record against visiting Sounders to 14 wins and four draws against just one loss (2011). Bouncing back from the 1-0, opening-week road loss at Vancouver on Feb. 21, RSL demonstrated its signature resolve and resilience during the Pablo Mastroeni era, dropping just 18 back-to-back games in 185 coached by the former U.S. Men’s World Cup star and MLS veteran, now winning 32 games and drawing 16 in games following a loss.
With Gozo emerging last year ahead of the USA U-20 Youth World Cup run to the quarterfinal stage - setting a new Club record with seven goal contributions as a teenager (4g, 3a in MLS) - he has led a group of five homegrown players and three starters 18 or younger starting in each of RSL’s first two 2026 matches, joining 17-year-old MF Luca Moisa and 18-year-old attacker Aiden Hezarkhani, both RSL Academy products. It was Gozo’s slicing run in the 23rd minute that led to the sequence that saw Moisa control a loose ball in midfield and set up Uruguayan debutant Juan Manuel Sanabria’s service to Hezarkhani, who scored for the first time in his four-game MLS career.
With Hezarkhani’s hard, driven half-volley tucking just underneath the crossbar - the teenager becoming RSL’s ninth-youngest scorer in history - RSL improves to 47 wins and 18 draws against just 10 losses when scoring first during that Mastroeni era.
The complete Matchday 2 results for MLSsoccer.com’s Team of the Matchday can be found below.
F: Dejan Joveljić (SKC), João Klauss (LA), Lionel Messi (MIA)
M: Telasco Segovia (MIA), Mark Delgado (LAFC), Thomas Müller (VAN), Anders Dreyer (SD)
D: Osaze Urhoghide (DAL), Lucas Herrington (COL), Tayvon Gray (NYC)
GK: Rafael Cabral (RSL)
Coach: Javier Mascherano (MIA)
Bench: Drake Callender (MIN), Justin Che (RBNY), Adri Mehmeti (RBNY), Zavier Gozo (RSL), Jamar Ricketts (SJ), Mateo Silvetti (MIA), Kelvin Yeboah (MIN), Christian Ramírez (ATX), Marcus Ingvartsen (SD)
Real Salt Lake now hits the road this weekend to face winless Atlanta United FC (0-2-0, 0 points, 15th East) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, with a 5:30p MT kickoff on Saturday in a match available on Apple TV and KSL Radio.
