The 2019 Major League Soccer regular season is in the books and Real Salt Lake will now begin its 10th playoff venture in the last 12 seasons after finishing third in the Western Conference with a 16-13-5 (53 points) record in its 15th regular season in MLS.
The club will now host the Portland Timbers in Round 1 of the 2019 Audi MLS Cup Playoffs on October 19. The Round 1 match will take place on Saturday, October 19 at 8:00p MT (ESPNews, ESPN Deportes) at Rio Tinto Stadium. Tickets are on sale now at RSL.com or by calling 844.REAL.TIX.
RSL and the Portland Timbers have met in the playoffs once in 2013 during the Western Conference Final. RSL ultimately topped the Timbers 5-2 on aggregate after a 4-2 win at Rio Tinto Stadium gave way to a trip to Portland that saw the Utah claim a 1-0 win en route to a Western Conference Championship and a trip to the 2013 MLS Cup Final.
The Timbers found its way into the playoffs on the final day of the 2019 regular season after beating the San Jose Earthquakes 3-1 at Providence Park. In 2019, RSL fell twice to the Timbers during the regular season. In May, RSL dropped a 2-1 home result before falling narrowly again to the Timbers 1-0 on the last day of August.
The all-time series between the two sides including playoffs is deadlocked at nine wins apiece with six draws. The only thing separating the two sides in the all-time series is Portland has scored just two more home goals than RSL since 2011. In total, RSL and the Timbers have played to a 5-5-2 (17 points) record at Rio Tinto Stadium with each team scoring 18 goals during regular season play.
With the Round 1 match being the first postseason meeting between the clubs since 2013, it will be all to play for in the one-and-done playoff format with the winner moving on to face FC Dallas or Seattle Sounders FC who finished the regular season in the 7th and 2nd seeds respectively. Should RSL beat the Timbers and if Seattle loses, RSL will host FC Dallas in the Western Conference Semifinal on either October 23 or 24.
