PREGAME FACTS AND INFO SHEET
REAL SALT LAKE @ FC DALLAS
SAT., AUGUST 29, 2015 – 7:00 pm MT
via KUTV.com / AMERICAN SPORTS NETWORK, ESPN700 & 102.3 LaGranD
1 – assist needed tonight by RSL “maestro” Javier Morales to accrue 75 in his MLS career, which would move him past former boss Jason Kreis and into 14th place in the league’s all-time annals … Morales’ 205 reg. season games played tonight ties him with former DF Nat Borchers for #3 in club history, trailing GK Nick Rimando (244, including tonight) and Capt. Kyle Beckerman (225 incl. tonight) … Morales boasts 43 goals and 74 assists in nine seasons with the Claret/Cobalt, accounting for nearly 25% of RSL’s total 464 goals, despite missing all of 2005, 2006 and most of 2007 and 2011 seasons …
2 – occasions this season in MLS play, including tonight, that have seen RSL boss Jeff Cassar roll out the same starting XI in back-to-back games … Back on May 16 in Montreal, Cassar was able to repeat the XI that had won 2-1 the week prior in Chicago, while tonight sees the exact same 18-man starting lineup and bench as last week’s 2-0 home win over Seattle, the first time a repeatable 18 has occurred this year …
3 – a victory tonight would give RSL just its third-ever win in the State of Texas in 11 years of playing in Dallas and Houston … RSL is 1-12-2 all-time, all competitions at Dallas, with a playoff and an Open Cup loss to go with 10 reg. season setbacks … The club’s lone win at Dallas came July 13, 2013, when Javier Morales and Olmes Garcia each scored – as did Ned Grabavoy – in a 3-0 win that marked Jeff Attinella’s RSL debut … RSL is just 1-8-1 all-time at Houston, the club’s next MLS opponent, the lone win coming last year when Morales’ hat trick in a 5-2 victory kicked off with the quickest goal in club history, just 15 seconds into the game …
4 – RSL Captain Kyle Beckerman now ranks #4 all-time in career MLS minutes played, surpassing former MLS GK Joe Cannon last week, leaving KB5 2338 minutes shy of Steve Ralston as the league’s all-time field-player minutes leader (only GKs Hartman and Rimando ahead of Ralston’s 33,143) … Beckerman has appeared in 372 games, with 343 starts, in his 16-year MLS career entering tonight, as he looks to add to his 30,781 entering kickoff …
5 – games over the first 15 days of August, RSL posting a 1-4-0 mark to undo the club’s 4-1-1 mark in July … Across 3 competitions, 4 time zones and nearly 11,000 air miles, RSL zig-zagged across the continent … RSL dropped the first match, 4-6, at D.C. United Aug. 1, prior to a 1-0 win at Guatemala in the CCL Group G opener on Aug. 4 … Following the 0-4 loss at Vancouver on Aug. 8, the club dropped the 2015 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Semifinal 1-3 at Kansas City, conceding twice in the final 10 minutes back on Aug. 12 … On Aug. 15 at home, RSL dominated the first half against Portland but couldn’t finish numerous chances created, ultimately succumbing to the dagger from former RSL DF Nat Borchers in the 95+’ on a late corner kick …
7 – consecutive playoff berths for RSL from 2008-14 (the longest active run in MLS), during which time the club has averaged 1.58 points per game) … RSL also owns a league-record 5 consecutive seasons with 15+ wins and 50+ points, matching LA’s active run from 2010 to present …
8 – members of the RSL family depart Sunday for international duty, with RSL fortunately facing a bye weekend for Labor Day’s FIFA window … DF Elias Vasquez (Guatemala), DF Demar Phillips (Jamaica) and DF Abdoulie Mansally (The Gambia) each represent their country in FIFA World Cup qualifiers, while DF Justen Glad, MF Bofo Saucedo and Real Monarchs GK Cristian Herrera join the U.S. U-20 camp in Serbia … MF Luis Gil and DF Boyd Okwuonu are invited to the U.S. U-23 preparatory camp for Olympic qualifying, which starts in a month and concludes Oct. 10/13 at Rio Tinto Stadium with the Semifinals and the Final/Third Place matches
9 – Should he appear off the bench tonight, newly-arrived RSL FW Juan Manuel Martinez – nicknamed “El Burrito” – would become the 9th Argentine player to don the Claret-and-Cobalt in the club’s 11 seasons, joining active men Javier Morales and Sebastian Jaime, along with Fabian Espindola and Matias Mantilla (each of whom arrived in 2007 with Morales), as well as Nelson Gonzalez … Three men – Emilano Bonfigli, Luis Miguel Escalada and Matias Cordoba – appeared 10 or fewer times for RSL during the Kreis era …
10 – combined total of red cards (8) and ejections (2) for RSL players and coaches this season, setting a new club single-season record for both in RSL’s 11-year, 406-game history …
20 – career MLS goals as well as the jersey number worn in 2015 by RSL’s newest player, M/F Luis Silva, making his fourth-consecutive Claret/Cobalt start tonight, after his first XI debut against Vancouver on Aug. 8 … Silva made his RSL debut August 1 in D.C., playing the final 8 minutes against his former D.C. United club after being acquired on July 16 in exchange for Costa Rican international Alvaro Saborio … Silva – hailed as RSL’s best player each of the last two weeks against Seattle and Portland – has 20 goals in 103 career MLS matches for Toronto (2012-13), where he played alongside Joao Plata and Aaron Maund, D.C. United (2013-15, with whom he won the 2013 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final at Rio Tinto Stadium) and now RSL, the former UC-Santa Barbara Gaucho also playing the final 5 minutes in Guatemala Aug. 4 at Municipal …
26 – all-time PK denials by RSL GK Nick Rimando, who went 3-for-5 against opponents in his last 10 games – denying Rapids MF Dillon Powers on June 7 to preserve a home point … Opposing PK takers have seen their conversion rates now drop to 43-for-70 against Rimando all-time, including 22-for-40 with Nick in an RSL uniform … Amazingly, Rimando has stopped 9 of the last 13 PKs faced and 11 of the last 17 … #WalloftheWasatch indeed …
59 – number of players in RSL’s 11-year, 125-player, 346-game league history to have scored at least one MLS goal for the Claret-and-Cobalt, now that FW Sebastian Jaime opened his MLS account June 21 against Kansas City … Several players will have the opportunity to become #60 tonight against FC Dallas …
95 – home wins since 2008, as RSL has amassed a 95-20-39 mark on home soil across all competitions in its last 154 home matches, during which it has outscored opponents by 165 goals (277-112) … RSL returns home Sept. 19 against LA with a 76-15-36 record in MLS reg. season games (228-93 goals), and a 6-1-1 CCL mark (17-5), a 5-2-2 playoff resume (11-4), and an 8-2-0 ledger in Open Cup (21-10) …
125 – players to have appeared in an MLS game for RSL in 11 seasons, as Jeff Cassar has given several players – Justen Glad, Phanuel Kavita, Boyd Okwuonu, Elias Vasquez, Demar Phillips, Sebastian Saucedo & Pecka – opportunities this season … 27 players have seen league minutes this year, everyone on the roster except GK Lalo Fernandez (MF Fito Ovalle is on season-long loan to the USL Monarchs) … Could “El Burrito” make it 126 / 28 tonight?
208 – career MLS reg. season and playoff games played by RSL Head Coach Jeff Cassar and assistant Ted Eck during their playing days in Dallas, from 1996-2004 …
35,000 – threshold passed in last week’s 7th minute for all-time minutes played by GK Nick Rimando in his 16-year MLS career, joining fellow GK Kevin Hartman in becoming just the second-ever player to reach that mark … Rimando has played 28 fewer games and made 23 fewer starts than Hartman, and 2,187 fewer minutes … Rimando enters tonight with 11 fewer wins, 15 fewer losses, 133 fewer saves but 10 more shutouts in his career than Hartman …
