The reunion is just around the corner.
On Saturday when New York City FC visits Rio Tinto Stadium, the match will be ripe with homecomings for former Real Salt Lake players, coaches and staff who now ply their trades with NYCFC. At the top of that table is RSL original and former Head Coach Jason Kreis.
ON Tuesday, his longtime confidant and top assistant Jeff Cassar made his weekly appearance on The Bill & OC Show on ESPN 700 and talked about the return of Kreis, assistant coaches C.J. Brown and Miles Joseph and the rest of the crew that’s coming back to Rio Tinto Stadium.
“It will be fun. It will be great to see him, C.J., Miles, their trainer, their equipment manager and I think about three-fourths of their team coming back home,” Cassar laughed. “It’ll be really nice to see familiar faces, but we’ve got a job to do and three points at stake.”
Real Salt Lake is looking to get back in the win column after suffering a 4-1 defeat to the Montreal Impact on Saturday and at 3-3-5 is in a three-way tie for sixth in the Western Conference. Meanwhile NYCFC is ninth in the East at 1-6-4 and winless in the last nine matches.
With both teams in need of victories, the friendliness will be kept to a minimum once things kick off at 8 p.m. MT on Saturday and focus shifts to the task at hand on the field.
“At the end of the day, it’s just executing. It’s about winning your individual battles and forcing them into difficult situations,” Cassar said. “They have quality players. All the players that Jason has at his disposal are the ones that he’s handpicked through expansion and through discovery. So they have a very good team. They’re trying to build cohesion like every team is.”
To hear the full interview, click here.
