HEY UTAH –
I cannot wait to see you all at Rio Tinto Stadium this Saturday evening for my debut as Real Salt Lake’s head coach. I’m obviously excited to be on this sideline – OUR sideline – and for us to achieve our goals, I want you to know that we cannot succeed without your phenomenal support.
As I’ve stated time and time again since arriving in Utah nearly 100 days ago, and reiterated last Wednesday during my RSL introduction, we are fortunate to have Owner Dell Loy Hansen’s commitment from the top and his support of absolutely everything this club needs. System-wide, from the Academy to the Monarchs to RSL, we have the ingredients to bring hardware to Utah and return the RioT to its dominant self.
What do you need to know and expect about me and my style?
It’s pretty simple: I am motivated, I am intense, and I want to win. My view of RSL is that this club has always been about how the badge over the heart is most important, that the men who wear it are difficult to play against, and that we are passionate and driven by a sense of family.
Now that I’m taking charge, I want this club to represent exactly that, and what I think about every day is how we will be more aggressive, how we will play with confidence, and how once we start doing that we will gain momentum.
Priority #1 is creating the baseline of expectations for how we will play, how we will get everyone on board and how we move in the right direction; we have to learn from the mistakes made during the early part of the season, but it is important to understand that everything that has happened in preseason and in the first five games up to this point is now in the rear-view mirror – its time to look forward.
Of course, those past results are clearly not good enough, but life is a game of opportunities and we will see who seizes theirs! We don’t need to take a sledgehammer to the whole thing, but our work rate, our cohesion, and our intensity will increase, based on a mutual respect amongst everyone in our locker room, in the organization, in the fan base, and a collective desire to always be improving.
I’m so excited to get going and I look forward to seeing you Saturday as we look to meet and hopefully exceed the expectations you have for RSL, and kick off this new era in Utah soccer!
Sincerely,
Mike Petke
Head Coach
Real Salt Lake
