7:30p MT Kickoff Wednesday in Second of Three Games This Week;
Timbers Arrive at America First Field Ahead of Rocky Mountain Cup Leg One Saturday in Colorado;
Tickets Available via *www.RSL.com/tickets*
HERRIMAN, Utah (Tuesday, May 13, 2025) – Real Salt Lake (4-7-1, 13 points, 11th West / 22nd Shield) continues its first three-game week of the 2025 season with Wednesday’s 7:30p MT kickoff against visiting Portland Timbers FC (6-3-3, 21 points, 3rd West / 7th Shield) at America First Field in Sandy. Tickets remain available for Wednesday’s match at www.RSL.com/tickets, with the game also available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Mark Rogondino and Heath Pearce (ENG) on the call, as are Francisco X. Rivera and Ivan Kasanzew (SPN).
Real Salt Lake’s brief respite at home arrives after its 1-1 draw at Dallas this weekend, with Diego Luna’s first-half goal earning yet another bounceback result to avoid consecutive losses for the fourth time this season. For the sixth time in eight opportunities across the first 13 games across all competitions in 2025, RSL successfully took its latest chance to embody one of the hallmarks of the Pablo Mastroeni era, displaying its ability to rebound from a loss, RSL dropping just 13 back-to-back scenarios across all competitions in Pablo’s 153 overall games managed since August, 2021. Saturday’s draw was its first of the year in 12 MLS contests this season, and its second across all competitions this year (0-0 at Herediano in Champions Cup first leg).
For the fourth time in the last three games, RSL and U.S. Men’s National Team starlet Luna found the back of the net to lead the Claret-and-Cobalt attack Saturday, his left-footed magic curling inside the post to give RSL the lead in the 23rd minute at Dallas. Luna now leads RSL with a team-high seven goals this season in 11 games played, landing him just one goal shy of his entire 2024 total, a campaign which earned him both MLS All-Star and MLS Young Player of the Year honors.
Two-and-a-half weeks ago in a 3-1 win at San Diego, Luna’s second brace of the year paced RSL to score three goals in a game for the first time since Sept., 2024, against Portland, a span of 17 games. Luna’s heroics late in the first half and RSL’s subsequent excellence improved RSL to 38W-7L-13T when scoring first during the Mastroeni era – marking the fourth match won this season across all competitions when scoring first (Seattle, Houston, LA Galaxy and at San Diego), against three losses (at home against Herediano, San Diego, away at Nashville), along with Saturday’s draw (at Dallas).
RSL’s trip to Nashville on April 12 kicked off a run that sees four out of five contests played away, and seven of 10 overall on the road through the end of May. Following the 1-1 draw at Dallas, RSL returns home for a rare midweek match this Wednesday, against Portland, before playing three of four away to end the month of May with trips to Colorado, Austin and LA Galaxy in the coming weeks, all prior to May 31. RSL also hosts MLS-leading and Champions Cup Finalist Vancouver on Utah soil on Sat., May 24 (7:30p MT kickoff – tickets at www.RSL.com/tickets).
Game Notes for Wednesday’s RSL v Portland Match Available Online
The Adobe PDF version of the 2025 RSL Game Guide in advance of Wednesday’s contest between Real Salt Lake and Portland can be found HERE. Media members looking to receive the document as an attachment or have further questions are asked to please contact RSL Communications via email at *RSLcommunications@RSL.com*.
Recent road trips at San Diego, Vancouver and Dallas have seen several RSL players achieve various milestones, as 18-year-old Academy product Zavier Gozo earned his first-ever trio of MLS starts, the Eagle Mountain, Utah-native going the full 90 minutes on the right wing each of the previous two weeks in place of injured Polish international Dominik Marczuk, who returned midway through the second half at Dallas to bolster a short-handed Utah side.
The win at San Diego and the subsequent loss at Vancouver also marked the Claret-and-Cobalt debut for 25-year-old FW William Agada, acquired three weeks ago Wednesday from Sporting Kansas City at the close of the primary transfer window, and now the 222nd player in RSL’s 21-season Major League Soccer history.
Agada is unavailable Wednesday at Portland due to a controversial second yellow card received with just under a half-hour remaining at Dallas, but is expected to return Saturday in Colorado. RSL homegrown DF Justen Glad is also unavailable on Wednesday, as his early first-half yellow card triggered the Club’s first caution accumulation suspension of 2025. DF Alex Katranis is now one caution away from serving a similar suspension, while both Captain Emeka Eneli and MF Braian Ojeda are two yellow cards away.
Agada’s former Kansas City captain, winger Johnny Russell, has not yet appeared for RSL after the free-agent acquisition arrived in Utah just under two weeks ago, joining the team on the trips to San Diego and Vancouver but not dressing until Saturday’s match at Dallas. Second-year D/M Noel Caliskan started and played impressively for the full 90 minutes at right back in the 1-1 draw at Dallas, making his 2025 first-team debut. 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.
With homegrown centerback Justen Glad missing the San Diego win with an adductor injury, GK Rafael Cabral is the last remaining “Iron Man” this MLS season, appearing in every minute of the Club’s 12 MLS contests this year, totaling 1080 MLS minutes, the Brazilian also playing all 180 minutes of RSL’s Concacaf Champions Cup action to kick off the season. Glad’s one-game absence puts him alongside starlet Diego Luna, Captain Emeka Eneli and MF Braian Ojeda, as well as Designated Player Diogo Gonçalves, as RSL players to have started 11 of the 12 games thus far in the MLS season.
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 100 wins, 111 losses and 75 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 61-54-38.
So far this season, RSL owns just a 2-4-2 / 8-point road record this season across all competitions under the guidance of fifth-year Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni, despite 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.
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.
This season, Real Salt Lake returns nearly 21,000 collective minutes played from last year’s roster, as the Club looks to build upon a record-setting 2024 campaign, as 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 29-team MLS shield race, while also establishing a new all-time scoring high of 65 goals.
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