Fourth of Five Consecutive Home RSL Matches Features Another Liga MX Opponent in 2025 Leagues Cup;
Surging RSL Remains at America First Field through August 6, including Another Leagues Cup Contest Wednesday;
Tickets Available via *www.RSL.com/tickets*
SANDY, Utah (Friday, August 1, 2025) – Surging Real Salt Lake (9-11-4, 31 points, 9th West / 18th Shield; 0-0-1, 2 points, t-4th MLS Leagues Cup) continues its very busy summer slate with Saturday’s 7:30p MT Leagues Cup match against visiting Liga MX side Atlético San Luis at America First Field. On Utah soil against Mexican visitors, RSL now owns an all-time 5W-6L-4T mark, including two wins, a loss and Wednesday’s dramatic 3-1 shootout victory over continental power Club América in the last three Leagues Cup tournaments.
Wednesday saw goals from 2024/25 Major League Soccer All-Star Diego Luna and forward William Agada give RSL a 2-1 halftime lead over tourney favorite Las Aguilas, but a flurry of missed second-half chances for the Utah side allowed a last-gasp 97+ equalizer to Club América before 19,544 fans at America First Field, setting the stage for a penalty-kick tiebreaker. RSL Captain and goalkeeper Rafael Cabral earned Man of the Match honors with a heroic eight-save performance, including stops on three of four PK attempts faced, while Claret-and-Cobalt men Pablo Ruiz, Justen Glad and Brayan Vera converted their attempts to secure two points in the Leagues Cup table.
Saturday’s contest is available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Tyler Terens and Kyndra de St. Aubin (ENG) on the call, as are Sergio Ruiz and Walter Roque (SPN). Iconic RSL voice David James and former MLS goalkeeper Jay Nolly will call the game for KSL Sports Radio (1160 AM / 97.5 FM), with Nelson Moran in his 21st season as RSL’s Spanish radio home on both 102.3 KDUT FM / 106.3 FM KBMG.
Following Saturday’s contest against former player Fidel Barajas and Atlético San Luis, RSL will welcome Queretaro to Sandy on Wednesday, Aug. 6 to conclude its trio of Phase One matches; kickoff for both remaining games is at 7:30p MT. Tickets are available at www.RSL.com/tickets.
RSL continues its third foray into the Leagues Cup tournament winners of five of its eight matches since the beginning of June, capturing 18 of a possible 24 points to vault itself from 13th to 9th in the MLS Western Conference table, moving above the playoff line – with a game in hand over its two closest pursuing teams – for the first time in 2025 with 10 MLS reg. season games remaining. The two points against Club América could prove vital for RSL to earn a top-four place amongst MLS sides in the Leagues Cup – RSL would need maximum points in its two remaining Phase One matches – with the Quarterfinal stage set for Aug. 19/20 in the MLS v. Liga MX tourney.
Game Notes for Saturday’s RSL v Atlético San Luis Match Available Online
The Adobe PDF version of the 2025 RSL Game Guide in advance of Saturday’s contest between Real Salt Lake and Atlético San Luis can be found HERE. Media members looking to receive the document as an attachment or have further questions are asked to please contact RSL Communications via email at *RSLcommunications@RSL.com*.
In MLS action, RSL’s 5-1-1 record during June and July has featured four wins in its last five home games, the most recent seeing an 81st-minute Braian Ojeda blast from distance serving as the game-winner last Saturday against San Jose. The win – RSL’s ninth of the season – marked its first comeback victory of 2025, with RSL scoring first in each of its previous eight victories of 2025. One week after a stunning home heartbreak against then-Supporters Shield leaders FC Cincinnati, the Ojeda winner ensured that RSL added another “bounce-back” result to its Mastroeni record. Since the former USMNT star and MLS veteran seized the Claret-and-Cobalt head coaching reins in August, 2021, RSL has dropped consecutive games just 14 times in 168 matches during the Mastroeni era, winning 29 and drawing 15 in games following a loss.
RSL now puts its 6-6-2 (W-L-T) home mark on the Wasatch Front thus far this year in MLS, Champions Cup and now Leagues Cup matches on the line against Atlético San Luis on Saturday, looking ahead to five more MLS reg. season and at least two more Leagues Cup games to be played at America First Field through the 2025 “Decision Day” in mid-October. 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.
The late 2-1 win against the Earthquakes on July 26 added to RSL’s historic dominance on Pioneer Day Weekend, with nine wins and five draws against just four losses in its previous 20 seasons. Earlier this month, RSL improved to eight wins, nine draws against just two losses all-time in its Fourth of July / Independence Day celebrations with a 3-2 win over St. Louis CITY SC, improving RSL’s record on the two holidays complete with post-game fireworks shows to a combined 17W-6L-9T on Utah soil.
Prior to conceding an 87th-minute game-winner on July 19 against Cincinnati – one which snapped RSL’s season-best five-game unbeaten run – RSL GK Rafael Cabral and the team defense had not conceded in 275 minutes over the course of four matches, the 11th-longest shutout streak in the Club’s nearly 700 MLS reg. season matches all-time.
RSL has now recorded a 42W-8L-16T record when scoring first during the 168-game Pablo Mastroeni era, with all but one of nine RSL victories this season coming when scoring first (Seattle, Houston, LA Galaxy, at San Diego, D.C., St. Louis, Houston and at Portland). 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), with Wednesday’s 2-2 regulation draw against Club América, the May 10 draw at Dallas, the May 28 deadlock at Austin, and the late June 1-1 knot at KC seeing RSL drop points from a winning position.
Away from home, RSL’s 3-6-4 / 13-point road record this season across all competitions has underperformed fifth-year head coach 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. RSL will next travel twice in mid-August for East Coast road trips – Sun., Aug. 10 at New York Red Bulls and Sat., Aug. 16 at Charlotte FC – prior to returning home Saturday, August 23, against Minnesota United FC. Again, tickets for all America First Field events are available at www.RSL.com/tickets.
The first two-thirds of the 2025 RSL season has witnessed several RSL players achieve various milestones:
- 18-year-old attacker Zavier Gozo – who graduated with several Academy teammates in late May in Herriman – earned his first-ever extended run of MLS action, the Eagle Mountain, Utah-native going the full 90 minutes on the attack in 13 of the last 16 games, all starts in one of the four attacking positions.
- Brazilian GK and RSL “Iron Man” Rafael Cabral – the lone RSL player to have appeared in every one of 2,430 minutes of the Club’s 27 games played across all competitions this season – logged his seventh clean sheet of the season July 16 at Portland, and his sixth in MLS reg. season action.
- Prior to the July 12 first-ever home goal for FW William Agada – who initially found the back of the RSL net at Austin on May 28 – his former Kansas City captain, winger Johnny Russell, follow suit by scoring for RSL in consecutive June games against D.C. and at KC, after the free-agent acquisition arrived in Utah in late April.
- Second-year D/M Noel Caliskan has started and played impressively in each of the last 14 contests – including 13 at right back – and scoring his first-ever MLS goal July 5 at home while 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.
- 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 103 wins, 114 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 67-58-43 (W-L-T).
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 then-29-team MLS Shield race, while also establishing a new all-time scoring high of 65 goals.
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