HERRIMAN, Utah (Thursday, July 3, 2025) – Real Salt Lake (5-10-4, 19 points, 13th West / 24th Shield) kicks off a very busy month of July with Saturday’s 7:30p MT Independence Day Weekend kickoff against St. Louis CITY SC (3-11-6, 15 points, 14th West / 28th Shield). Post-game fireworks will occur Saturday as RSL looks to extend its active unbeaten streak to three games, with winger Johnny Russell also seeking to extend his current scoring streak to three consecutive matches. Saturday’s contest is available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Max Bretos and Warren Barton (ENG) on the call, as are Diego Pessolano and Daniel Chapela (SPN).
Starting with Saturday’s celebration, America First Field will host seven of RSL’s next eight matches through August 6, including a trio of 2025 Leagues Cup matches. While RSL will still be missing 2025 MLS All-Star and USA Gold Cup catalyst Diego Luna due to Sunday’s final against Mexico, Paraguayan pivot Braian Ojeda (green card acquisition) will be back on Utah soil, as RSL’s Saturday match against St. Louis kicks off a run of five out of six July matches at America First Field, including the Leagues Cup opener against Mexican power Club America. Tickets for all RSL contests are available at www.RSL.com/tickets.
RSL has earned four points in its two June matches, coming on the heels of seven-game winless run that dated back to April 26 at San Diego. The June 14 game-winner from Johnny Russell – who also scored in last week’s return to his former Kansas City side – arrived in his home RSL debut and during his first-ever start, with the insurance goal coming from homegrown Academy product and Utah-born sensation Zavier Gozo. Brazilian GK and RSL “Iron Man” Rafael Cabral – the lone RSL player to have appeared in every minute of the Club’s 21 games played across all competitions this season – logged his fifth clean sheet of the season in RSL’s last home match.
Including last weekend at Kansas City, RSL has now recorded a 39W-8L-15T record when scoring first during the Mastroeni era, with all five RSL victories this season coming when scoring first (Seattle, Houston, LA Galaxy, at San Diego and D.C.). Four of the eight losses under Mastroeni when taking the 1-0 lead since August, 2021, have come this season (at home against Herediano / San Diego, away at Nashville, home against Vancouver), along with the May 10 draw at Dallas, the May 28 deadlock at Austin, as well as last week’s 1-1 knot at KC.
Dropping back-to-back results is also rare during the former two-time USMNT World Cup performer’s reign. Since Mastroeni seized the head coaching reins in August, 2021, RSL has dropped consecutive games just 14 times in 160 matches during the Mastroeni era, winning 28 and drawing 15 in “bounceback” contests. An RSL victory or draw this weekend against St. Louis would give RSL a three-game unbeaten run for the first time since last October, when RSL carried a seven-game streak without a loss through the end of the MLS reg. season and playoffs.
The first half of the 2025 RSL season witnessed several RSL players achieve various milestones, as 18-year-old Academy product Zavier Gozo – who graduated with several Academy teammates in late May in Herriman – earned his first-ever run of MLS starts, the Eagle Mountain, Utah-native going the full 90 minutes on the attack in eight of the last 10 games.
Another RSL Academy product, then 17-year-old M/F Aiden Hezarkhani, made his MLS debut before hometown friends and family on May 31 at LA Galaxy. Hezarkhani – the 224th player to log at least one MLS minute for RSL in its 21-year history – celebrated his 18th birthday on the RSL gameday at Kansas City last weekend.
RSL FW William Agada – who scored his first goal for the Club at Austin on May 28 – saw his former Kansas City captain, winger Johnny Russell, follow suit by finding the back of the net for RSL after the free-agent acquisition arrived in Utah in late April.
Second-year D/M Noel Caliskan has started and played impressively for the full 90 minutes at right back in each of the last eight contests, making his 2025 first-team debuts. The German-born Caliskan was drafted out of Loyola Marymount University in 2023 by the Timbers, for whom he played MLS, Open Cup and MLS NEXT Pro action during his rookie season before signing with Real Monarchs a year ago.
Holding midfielder Nelson Palacio started and played the full 90 in each of the last three matches, the U22 Colombian making back-to-back starts for the first time in his two seasons with Real Salt Lake.
That 3-1 victory at San Diego on April 26 also marked Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni’s 100th career coaching win across all competitions for the two Rocky Mountain Cup competitors, RSL (2021-present) and Colorado (2014-17). The former U.S. World Cup stalwart has now amassed 101 wins, 113 losses and 77 draws across all competitions for the Utah/Denver-based sides. Last June in Kansas City, Mastroeni earned his 50th win across all competitions with RSL in a wild 4-3 road decision, with the 2-0 reg. season win over LA Galaxy on April 5 marking his 50th MLS victory with RSL. Since August, 2021, in Utah, Mastroeni’s all-time coaching record is now 62-57-41 (W-L-T).
With a 3-5-1 (W-L-T) mark on the Wasatch Front thus far this year in both MLS and Champions Cup matches, RSL now looks ahead to nine MLS reg. season and at least three Leagues Cup games to be played at America First Field through the 2025 “Decision Day.” A year ago, RSL amassed a 12-3-4 (W-L-T) record at home, where the Club has traditionally enjoyed a fortress-like record of success, winning nearly 70% of games and averaging just under two points per game in parts of 17 seasons across all competitions in Sandy.
Away from home, RSL’s 2-6-4 / 10-point road record this season across all competitions has underperformed fifth-year Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni’s track record, with each of the last two seasons marking the Claret-and-Cobalt’s best road campaigns in team history. The 2023 side posted an 11W-8L-5T away mark across all competitions, a record which includes both that year’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Semifinal loss to Houston, and its road loss and elimination draw in the first and third games of the teams’ 2023 Audi MLS Cup Playoff series on the Shell Energy Stadium turf.
A year ago, Mastroeni’s men registered the second-most road points in RSL history, with a 5W-4L-8T MLS reg. season mark, one which does NOT includes its heartbreaking, multi-goal Leagues Cup elimination loss to the Dynamo following a home win over Atlas FC.
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.
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.
--- ***www.RSL.com*** ---
