Are RSL’s playoff chances all but extinguished, or does there yet remain an ember of opportunity? Our author explores all the pertinent questions and more in this latest installment of our newest subseries.
Welcome to the fourth installment of The Playoff Countdown, our newest Storylines subseries taking narrative centre stage in these final weeks of the domestic season, and exploring all of the pertinent, pressing questions regarding the contemporary outlook, ramifications, possibilities, and all there is on Real Salt Lake’s 2025 playoff quest.
“Last Chance Saloon” bears the title of this week’s rendering — and also represents the downright, unembellished reality of RSL’s pursuit of postseason salvation. If not now, when?
Pablo Mastroeni and Co. are in pursuit of legacy perpetuity — the RSL boss has never failed to qualify for the MLS playoffs in all of his years at the helm. This year’s promise, however, particularly at this late stage of the season, now faces a daunting prospect.
In the service of that, the next assignment for the Claret-and-Cobalt arrives imminently in the form of a home matchup with West 6th-placed Austin FC, at America First Field, in what will be the reverse (second) fixture between both sides this season.
Out with the old and in with the new. In that spirit, our author brings you some of the most crucial information and narratives to ponder ahead of Saturday’s latest contest of supreme consequence.
Playoff outlook: a daunting prospect
Can Real Salt Lake still qualify for the playoffs?
It is a query surely as old as time… or at least so it feels.
Thrice now (in previous installments), that question has been posed, and thrice there has been insufficient evidence for a definitive resolution — with each new response even less conclusive than the last.
The preceding week and the results that came with it arguably brought about the clearest sign of permanent clarification, and admittedly, it provided little reassurance.
Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni’s side could only manage to follow up an encouraging 2-1 home victory against Sporting Kansas City with battering quick-fire defeats to Los Angeles FC in the Claret-and-Cobalt’s next two games, falling 1-4 in matches both at home and away, in the space of just five days, to put the exclamation mark on a chastening week.
Mastroeni’s men had gone into the first of both LAFC games in 10th, but on 34 points and only a single point behind at-the-time 9th-placed San Jose Earthquakes, with two games in hand and the close possibility of ‘play-in’ eligibility. But the back-to-back defeats have now seen the Claret-and-Cobalt fall to 12th, three points behind new 9th-place incumbents FC Dallas, now without any kind of numerical game advantage and a much inferior goal difference.
Last season, the Vancouver Whitecaps managed to advance all the way to the Western Conference quarterfinals of the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs, following an eighth-place league table finish, via a victory over 9th-placed Portland Timbers in the customary “play-in” precursor to determine which of the two positions gets the reward of postseason contention.
Again this season, the traditional playoff rules dictate that the top nine teams at the end of the regular season each stand a chance of postseason contention, but only after the 8th v 9th play-in round, which will pit the bottom two eligible teams against each other.
RSL continue to boast a one-game advantage over the teams closest above it in the table (San Jose in 11th and Houston Dynamo in 10th), but such positions are of naught consequence whatsoever in relation to the playoff chase and, as the past week so aptly evidenced, games in hand don’t always translate to points on the board.
With just four matches left, and the regular season’s end now appearing precariously on the horizon, the play-in route increasingly appears to be RSL’s likeliest path into the playoffs, and Mastroeni and Co. now find themselves in a race against time — and themselves (their own meanest excesses) — in one final, last-gasp chance at postseason reprieve.
A make-or-break period
Real Salt Lake v Austin FC represents a game of momentous gravitas — a contest of supreme gravity and consequence, in the context of RSL’s playoff push. But so did last week against LAFC, and the weekend before that, and the one before that one as well, and every other game that occurs until the season’s conclusion. Every match continuing from this point till the end of the campaign, in truth, likely fulfils that title.
Both teams have already met once earlier this year, in a 1-1 draw near the end of May were striker William Agada’s first goal in an RSL shirt, in the 67th minute of the tie, was cruelly cancelled out by a Diego Rubio strike for the hosts late in the third minute of added time at the Q2 Stadium to force a share of the spoils.
The past three meetings between both teams have yielded two stalemates, with the anomaly being RSL’s last victory over Austin, which arrived in a comfortable 5-1 thumping for Mastroeni’s men at America First Field in June of the 2024 season, in a gloriously thrilling affair that saw a hattrick and a brace for former captain Chicho Arango and former striker Anderson Julio, respectively.
One would have to rewind all the way back to March of the 2023 campaign to discover the last time the Claret-and-Cobalt dropped all points to Los Verde, with defender Justen Glad securing RSL’s sole strike on the day in a narrow 2-1 defeat at America First Field.
With Head Coach Nico Estévez’s Austin practically assured of a playoff spot, sitting comfortably in 6th place after 30 rounds of matches, much of the onus will surely lie on Mastroeni’s charges, with the added benefit of home comfort, to try and stifle their high-flying guests and walk away from the encounter with something to hold on to in the team’s general playoff push.
Mastroeni and Co., however, head into Saturday’s matchup with the knowledge that their current margin of goal difference inferiority means the highest they can climb in the table, in the event of a victory, is 10th place, but the requirement of the teams above them losing their own matches means the Claret-and-Cobalt’s destiny, for this weekend at least, lies out of its own hands.
His name is Zavier
The good news for the RSL boss, though, exists conspicuously in the current form of 18-year-old prodigy, Zavier Gozo. The teenage sensation laid his stamp on last week’s meeting with LAFC with a tremendous acrobatic goal, in an ensuing 1-4 loss, to take his personal season goal contribution tally to four goals and two assists in 24 appearances, and continue what has been a spectacular personal debut year.
His numbers and statistics paint a favorable picture, with his four goals making him the team’s second top scorer in Major League Soccer this season, and true to the figures Gozo has undoubtedly shone at several points for RSL this campaign, in a team that has struggled for the overwhelming part of the year, as one of its most electric and consistently best performers despite his tender years, which also make him one of its youngest.
“There’s a little bit of Thierry Henry in him,” Real Monarchs head coach Mark Lowry enthused about the 18-year-old in a club interview he shared near the start of 2024, drawing comparisons with the legendary former France international. In the context and perspective of the Real Salt Lake ecosystem, at least, it's not too hard to see why, and Mastroeni will no doubt be searching for a dynamic replacement when Austin come to town this weekend, as Gozo and teammate Marcos Zambrano begin their USA U-20 representation at the FIFA Youth World Cup with Monday’s match in Chile.
Remaining 2025 schedule
The conclusion of Saturday’s home affair will leave Mastroeni and Co. with merely three matches left to decide their playoff destiny, headlined by a Rocky Mountain Cup final against bitter rivals the Colorado Rapids on the first weekend of October.
Saturday, October 4th: Home vs Colorado (8th West)
Saturday, October 11th: Away vs Seattle (5th West)
Saturday, October 18th: Away vs St. Louis (13th West).
Secure your tickets for the weekend’s contest of consequence in Sandy, right here.
