HERRIMAN, Utah (Friday, March 22, 2024) – Real Salt Lake (1-2-1, 4 pts., 8th West MLS) resumes its 2024 MLS regular season – the Club’s 20th and Major League Soccer 29th – this Saturday evening at B.C. Place in Vancouver with a 5:30p MT kickoff against the Whitecaps. Earlier in the day, RSL’s MLS NEXT Pro side Real Monarchs (0-0-1, 2 pts.) plays against Whitecaps 2 at 12 noon MT, with both games available on the Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass service.
Prior to last week’s bye, RSL fell at home, 1-2, against Rocky Mountain Cup rivals Colorado, with the Rapids reversing an early 1-0 deficit at America First Field in Sandy. Despite the first professional goal from second-year MF Emeka Eneli and a strong performance from 18-year-old GK Gavin Beavers, RSL was unable to finish its chances and fell at home to Colorado for the first time since 2020, and for the first time on Utah soil with fans in the building since 2007. Newcomer DF Alex Katranis made his RSL debut that day, while MF Noel Caliskan made his first-ever RSL start.
Monarchs-contracted FW Daron Iskanderian is once again available for RSL via Major League Soccer’s “Short-Term Callup” mechanism, his second of the young 2024 campaign.
Saturday’s kickoff starts at 5:30p MT on Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass w/ Blake Price and Paul Dolan (ENG) and Adrian Garcia Marquez and Francisco Pinto (SPN). For local coverage, tune in at 4:30p MT for KSL Radio pre-game w/ David James & Jay Nolly via www.KSLSports.com / 1280 AM / 97.5 FM andwww.KSLNewsRadio.com / 1160 AM).
Read more about all the storylines going into Saturday's matchup, here.
THREE RSL PLAYERS OUT DUE TO INTERNATIONAL DUTY
Three RSL players will miss this weekend’s trip to Canada – two due to U.S. Youth National Team duty, as playmaker Diego Luna and goalkeeper Gavin Beavers represent the Stars-and-Stripes – while Colombian winger Andrés Gómez was a late addition to Los Cafeteros camp in London, England. Luna is once again at the fulcrum of the U.S. Olympic Team setup ahead of this Summer’s Paris Olympics, joining the U.S. U-23 camp that will see games against Spain and France.
Beavers is part of the U.S. U-20 camp in Morocco this week, his age group slated to play games against England (Sun., March 24 and Morocco (Tues., March 26). Both players are expected to return to RSL in time for the Club’s next MLS contest, Saturday, March 30 at America First Field in Sandy against St. Louis CITY SC.
RSL was not originally expected to be at or even near full-strength for this week’s trip to Vancouver during the FIFA window, as several countries – Chile (Pablo Ruiz), Colombia (DF Bryan Vera, FW Andrés Gómez), Costa Rica (Bryan Oviedo), Ecuador (Anderson Julio), Paraguay (Braian Ojeda) and the United States (Fidel Barajas) had RSL names on their preliminary rosters. For various reasons, only Luna and Beavers ended up making the final “Club and Country” callups.
