Battle for Western Conference Playoff Spots Continue w/ Second of Five Consecutive Home RSL Matches
at America First Field through August 6, including Trio of Leagues Cup Contests;
Tickets Available via *www.RSL.com/tickets*
HERRIMAN, Utah (Friday, July 25, 2025) – Real Salt Lake (8-11-4, 28 points, 10th West / 20th Shield) continues a very busy month of July with Saturday’s 7:30p MT Pioneer Day Weekend celebration against visiting San Jose Earthquakes (7-9-8, 29 points, 9th West / 19th Shield) at America First Field. The highly-anticipated contest is available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Mark Rogondino and Heath Pearce (ENG) on the call, as are Carlos Mauricio Ramirez and Max Cordaro (SPN). Iconic RSL voice David James and former MLS goalkeeper Jay Nolly will call the game for KSL Sports Radio (1160 AM / 97.5 FM), with Nelson Moran in his 21st season as RSL’s Spanish radio home on both 102.3 KDUT FM / 106.3 FM KBMG.
RSL remains home this weekend looking to rebound from Saturday’s excellent performance in a late, 0-1 loss to Supporters Shield leaders FC Cincinnati, which snapped RSL’s season-best five-game unbeaten run, one which saw Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni’s side rise from 13th to 10th in the West table, where it now sits just one point behind San Jose in the ninth and final spot above the 2025 playoff line. Prior to conceding an 87th-minute game-winner, RSL GK Rafael Cabral and the team defense had not conceded in 275 minutes over the course of four matches, the 11th-longest shutout streak in the Club’s nearly 700 MLS reg. season matches all-time.
2025 MLS All-Star Diego Luna returns from the midseason festivities in Austin, where the 21-year-old U.S. Men’s National Team standout participated in Tuesday’s MLS Skills Challenge and played the final 45 minutes in Wednesday’s 3-1 victory over the LIGA MX All-Stars, many of whom will arrive at America First Field with Club América, Atlético San Luis and Queretaro from Wed., July 30 through Wed., Aug. 6 for the trio of RSL’s Phase One matches in this year’s Leagues Cup tourney.
Saturday against San Jose, RSL will look to add to its historic dominance on Pioneer Day Weekend, with eight wins and five draws against just four losses in its previous 20 seasons. Earlier this month, RSL improved to eight wins, nine draws against just two losses all-time in its Fourth of July / Independence Day fireworks celebrations with a 3-2 win over St. Louis CITY SC. RSL’s record on the two holidays complete with post-game fireworks shows is a combined 16W-6L-9T on Utah soil.
RSL now remains home Saturday to host West rival San Jose in the second of five consecutive home matches, putting its 5-6-1 (W-L-T) mark on the Wasatch Front thus far this year in both MLS and Champions Cup matches on the line, looking ahead to six more MLS reg. season and at least three Leagues Cup games to be played at America First Field through the 2025 “Decision Day” in mid-October. A year ago, RSL amassed a 12-3-4 (W-L-T) record at home, where the Club has traditionally enjoyed a fortress-like record of success, winning nearly 70% of games and averaging just under two points per game in parts of 17 seasons across all competitions in Sandy.
Entering Saturday against San Jose, RSL has captured 13 of 18 possible points thus far in June and July, scoring first in 15 of 25 contests so far this year, with an 8-4-3 (W-L-T) mark. Since Mastroeni seized the head coaching reins in August, 2021, RSL has dropped consecutive games just 14 times in 166 matches during the Mastroeni era, winning 28 and drawing 15 in “bounceback” contests.
RSL has now recorded a 42W-8L-15T record when scoring first during the 166-game Pablo Mastroeni era, with all eight RSL victories this season coming when scoring first (Seattle, Houston, LA Galaxy, at San Diego, D.C., St. Louis, Houston and at Portland). Four of the eight losses under Mastroeni when taking the 1-0 lead since August, 2021, have come this season (at home against Herediano / San Diego, away at Nashville, home against Vancouver), with the May 10 draw at Dallas, the May 28 deadlock at Austin, and the late June 1-1 knot at KC seeing RSL drop points from a winning position.
Away from home, RSL’s 3-6-4 / 13-point road record this season across all competitions has underperformed fifth-year head coach Mastroeni’s track record, with each of the last two seasons marking the Claret-and-Cobalt’s best road campaigns in team history. The 2023 side posted an 11W-8L-5T away mark across all competitions, a record which includes both that year’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Semifinal loss to Houston, and its road loss and elimination draw in the first and third games of the teams’ 2023 Audi MLS Cup Playoff series on the Shell Energy Stadium turf.
A year ago, Mastroeni’s men registered the second-most road points in RSL history, with a 5W-4L-8T MLS reg. season mark, one which does NOT includes its heartbreaking, multi-goal Leagues Cup elimination loss to the Dynamo following a home win over Atlas FC. RSL will next travel twice in mid-August for East Coast road trips – Sun., Aug. 10 at New York Red Bulls and Sat., Aug. 16 at Charlotte FC – prior to returning home Saturday, August 23, against Minnesota United FC. Again, tickets for all America First Field events are available at www.RSL.com/tickets.
The first two-thirds of the 2025 RSL season has witnessed several RSL players achieve various milestones:
- 18-year-old attacker Zavier Gozo – who graduated with several Academy teammates in late May in Herriman – earned his first-ever extended run of MLS action, the Eagle Mountain, Utah-native going the full 90 minutes on the attack in 11 of the last 14 games, all starts in one of the four attacking positions.
- Brazilian GK and RSL “Iron Man” Rafael Cabral – the lone RSL player to have appeared in every one of 2,250 minutes of the Club’s 25 games played across all competitions this season – logged his seventh clean sheet of the season last Wednesday at Portland, and his sixth in MLS reg. season action.
- Prior to the July 12 first-ever home goal for FW William Agada – who initially found the back of the RSL net at Austin on May 28 – his former Kansas City captain, winger Johnny Russell, follow suit by scoring for RSL in consecutive June games against D.C. and at KC, after the free-agent acquisition arrived in Utah in late April.
- Second-year D/M Noel Caliskan has started and played impressively for the full 90 minutes in each of the last 12 contests – including 11 at right back – and scoring his first-ever MLS goal July 5 at home while making his 2025 first-team debuts. The German-born Caliskan was drafted out of Loyola Marymount University in 2023 by the Timbers, for whom he played MLS, Open Cup and MLS NEXT Pro action during his rookie season before signing with Real Monarchs a year ago.
- That 3-1 victory at San Diego on April 26 also marked Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni’s 100th career coaching win across all competitions for the two Rocky Mountain Cup competitors, RSL (2021-present) and Colorado (2014-17). The former U.S. World Cup stalwart has now amassed 103 wins, 114 losses and 77 draws across all competitions for the Utah/Denver-based sides. Last June in Kansas City, Mastroeni earned his 50th win across all competitions with RSL in a wild 4-3 road decision, with the 2-0 reg. season win over LA Galaxy on April 5 marking his 50th MLS victory with RSL. Since August, 2021, in Utah, Mastroeni’s all-time coaching record is now 66-58-42 (W-L-T).
During each of Pablo’s previous three full seasons at the RSL helm, the Club has increased its annual point total (47 in 2022, 50 in 2023 and 59 last year), while increasing its Western Conference table position as well (7th in 2022, 5th in 2023 and 3rd last year). The 2025 campaign features RSL’s pursuit of a Conference-best fifth consecutive postseason berth, a seventh in the last eight seasons and its 15th in the last 18 years.
Last year saw RSL advance to the MLS Cup Playoffs for a fourth consecutive occasion, the sixth time in seven seasons (2020 the lone exception), and for the 14th time in the last 17 seasons since first qualifying in 2008 (2015, 2017 the other outliers). The 2024 MLS regular season reached an all-time high of 59 points for RSL, which finished third in the Western Conference and sixth overall in the then-29-team MLS Shield race, while also establishing a new all-time scoring high of 65 goals.
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