HERRIMAN, Utah (Friday, May 23, 2025) – Real Salt Lake (4-8-2, 14 points, 12th West / 23rd Shield) kicks off its second three-game week of the 2025 MLS season with Saturday’s 7:30p MT kickoff at America First Field against MLS Western Conference leaders Vancouver Whitecaps FC (8-1-4, 28 points, 1st West / 3rd Shield), the second of two meetings between the teams this month. The match is available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Neil Sika and Lloyd Sam (ENG) on the call, as are Jose Bauz and Ivan Kasanzew (SPN).
Saturday’s rare home match continues a run that sees RSL play seven of 10 overall on the road from April 12 – May 31. Following Saturday’s Damir Kreilach homecoming, RSL is back on the road to end the month of May with trips to Austin and LA Galaxy Wednesday/Saturday, prior to hosting nine of 11 at home from June 14 – August 6. RSL next hosts D.C. United on Utah soil on Sat., June 14 (7:30p MT kickoff – tickets at www.RSL.com/tickets) to celebrate Club legend Nick Rimando and his 2025 National Soccer Hall of Fame induction .
The upcoming trio of games to end May gives RSL starlet Diego Luna a chance to add to his team-high seven goals scored this season prior to his June departure, where he will compete for Mauricio Pochettino’s U.S. Men’s National Team in friendlies on June 7 / 10, and presumably the Stars-and-Stripes’ Gold Cup tournament as well. Luna continues to lead RSL with a team-high seven goals this season in 13 games played, landing him just one goal shy of his entire 2024 total, a campaign which earned him both MLS All-Star and MLS Young Player of the Year honors. Luna joins Captain Emeka Eneli and holding midfielder Braian Ojeda as players to have appeared in all but one of RSL’s 14 MLS games this season, each trailing “Iron Man” GK Rafael Cabral, the lone player to have appeared in every minute of the Club’s 16 games played across multiple competitions.
June’s various international competitions are also expected to affect the availability for U.S. Youth National Team player Zavier Gozo, Polish international Dominik Marczuk (UEFA U-21 tournament) and Australian striker Ari Piol (Socceroos’ U-23 tourney).
Should RSL score first Saturday against Vancouver – which called Sandy home during the 2021 Covid-affected season – it could be good omen, as RSL has now recorded a 38W-7L-13T record when scoring first during the Pablo Mastroeni era. All four RSL victories this season have come when scoring first (Seattle, Houston, LA Galaxy and at San Diego), while the team also owns three losses (at home against Herediano, San Diego, away at Nashville) when taking the 1-0 lead, along with the May 10 draw at Dallas.
Recent weeks have seen several RSL players achieve various milestones, as 18-year-old Academy product Zavier Gozo – who graduated with several Academy teammates Thursday in Herriman – earned his first-ever quintet of MLS starts, the Eagle Mountain, Utah-native going the full 90 minutes on the right wing in four of the last five games in place of once-injured Polish international Dominik Marczuk, who returned midway through the second half at Dallas to bolster a short-handed Utah side.
The win at San Diego and the subsequent loss at Vancouver just under a month ago also marked the Claret-and-Cobalt debut for 25-year-old FW William Agada, acquired from Sporting Kansas City at the close of the primary transfer window, and now the 222nd player in RSL’s 21-season Major League Soccer history.
Agada’s former Kansas City captain, winger Johnny Russell, became the 223rd player to appear for RSL after the free-agent acquisition arrived in Utah just under three weeks ago, joining the team on the trips to San Diego and Vancouver but not dressing until draws against Dallas and Portland, finally playing in Saturday’s 1-0 Rocky Mountain Cup loss at Colorado. Second-year D/M Noel Caliskan started and played impressively for the full 90 minutes at right back in each of the last three 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.
Agada and RSL homegrown DF Justen Glad have returned to availability after serving recent disciplinary suspensions, while previously injured defenders Brayan Vera (concussion), Philip Quinton (hamstring) and Kobi Henry (hamstring) have resumed full training and dressed for recent MLS / MLS NEXT Pro contests, ready to compete again for MLS minutes as RSL prepares for three games in the next eight days, prior to the early-June FIFA international window.
RSL DF Alex Katranis and MF Braian Ojeda remain one caution away from serving yellow-card suspensions, while MF Diego Luna and DF Bode Hidalgo are each two yellow cards away.
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 100 wins, 112 losses and 75 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 61-55-39.
So far this season, RSL owns just a 2-4-1 / 7-point home mark across multiple competitions at America First Field this season, with the glut of the home schedule resuming in mid-June. Away from home, RSL’s 2-5-2 / 8-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.
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.
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