With nearly half of the week gone in the second week of Real Salt Lake’s trip to Tucson, Arizona, the team is now set to face the Houston Dynamo on Wednesday for its second match in the 2020 Visit Tucson Sun Cup.
“The idea of Wednesday’s match is to get the players who played 45 minutes against Houston last Saturday another match against tough competition,” RSL Assistant Coach Tyrone Marshall explained after Tuesday’s training. “After Wednesday, we’ll then have two groups who have gone two full 90-minute matches and will give us a good idea of where we're at before our final match on Saturday.”
After a retooled offseason, Houston enters Wednesday’s contest with several new faces in its team that could provide RSL with a tough test. RSL will look to give more players the opportunity at playing 90 minutes after last Saturday’s match against Sporting KC saw the other half of the team play a full match.
“Of course, there are new faces with the Dynamo this year and the idea is to get most of our players to go 90 minutes tomorrow,” Marshall said. “There will be some players who do not play the full match but we’re treating it like a real match, and we’ll make the substitutions at the appropriate time.”
With Wednesday’s match giving way to the team’s final preseason match of the year on Saturday against USL Championship side Phoenix Rising FC, RSL’s coaching staff is simply looking for collective principal implementation and for everyone to remain healthy ahead of Saturday. A full match for the group remains important with its season opener just a week and a half away.
“Staying healthy is a huge thing for us. Going into the season opener these next two matches will show us who is ready to step up and be on the travel roster to Orlando,” Marshall said. “
RSL face the Houston Dynamo on Wednesday at Kino North Stadium with the match set to kick off at 4:00p MT. Fans can stream Wednesday’s contest LIVE here.
