HERRIMAN, Utah (Fri., March 28, 2025) – Real Salt Lake (2-3-0, 6 points, 11th West / 21st Shield) return to the road Saturday night in St. Paul, Minn., traveling to face recent postseason foe Minnesota United FC (2-1-2, 8 points, 6th West / 13th Shield) in a 6:30p MT kickoff at Allianz Field. Saturday’s match will be available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Neil Sika and Lloyd Sam (ENG) on the call, as are Sergio Ruiz & Walter Roque (SPN).
This weekend, Real Salt Lake and Minnesota reprise its first-round series matchup in the 2024 Audi MLS Cup Playoffs, each team drawing after 90 minutes, with the Loons emerging via the penalty-kick tiebreaker in both meetings. Overall, the two sides have drawn in each of the last six meetings in 2023 and 2024, both teams earning points as visitors, with each winning at home in 2022. All-time, RSL owns just one win and five draws against five losses in 11 matches across all competitions in Minnesota, the Claret-and-Cobalt unbeaten in its last four trips to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Four RSL players – including playmaker Diego Luna (USA), winger Dominik Marczuk (Poland), FW Zavier Gozo(USA U-20) and MF Aiden Hezarkhani (USA U-18) – return to Club duty this week after being called in the most recent FIFA window.
Last week, RSL fell in an 0-1 scoreline against visiting FC Dallas, with a 23rd-minute adjudication of an Ari Piol offense resulting in a red card, the Claret-and-Cobalt forced to play a man down for nearly 70 remaining minutes. In that time, it was Brazilian goalkeeper Rafael Cabral who came up big on several occasions, including the denial of 35th-minute penalty-kick attempt by former MLS MVP Lucho Acosta. Unfortunately for RSL, it was Acosta that nodded home the game’s only goal seven minutes into first-half stoppage, dooming the Utah side to a third home loss of the season, equaling last year’s total.
Now, for a fourth time in the first eight games across all competitions in 2025, RSL has an opportunity to improve upon one of the hallmarks of RSL under Mastroeni’s guidance, specifically its ability to bounce back from losses, dropping just 11 back-to-back scenarios across all competitions in Pablo’s 146 overall games managed since August, 2021.
Two weeks ago on its last road trip, RSL snapped a nine-game road winless run against the Dynamo in Houston (dating back to 2018), posting a 2-1 victory that saw both of the Club’s premier playmakers, Diogo Gonçalves and Diego Luna, score first-half goals on either side of the Houston equalizer. Just 43 seconds into the match, Diogo found the back of the net with the fourth-fastest goal in RSL history, assisted by Emeka Eneli and Luna on a play started at midfield by striker Ariath Piol.
Following a 17th-minute equalizer by Houston on a set piece, it was Luna scoring just before halftime in the 50+ minute, using his maskless head to redirect a far-post shot from winger Dominik Marczuk, seizing momentum and shocking the Dynamo faithful. A resolute RSL defense stood firm for the final 45-plus, with GK Rafael Cabral and several others demonstrating grit, guile and fortitude to see out the win, just the fourth-ever in RSL’s nearly two-decades worth of trips to South Texas since 2007.
The Houston win improved RSL’s 2025 road mark across all competitions to 1-1-1 under the guidance of fifth-year Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni, 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.
Despite falling already this year against both Herediano and San Diego with early first-half scores, during the Pablo Mastroeni era, RSL still boasts a 36W-6L-12T mark when scoring first.
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.
Mastroeni earned his 50th win across all competitions with RSL in a 4-3 decision last June at Kansas City, with his 3rdreg. season win this season marking his 50th with RSL. During his entire MLS coaching career – which includes the 2014-17 years at Colorado – former U.S. World Cup stalwart Mastroeni has amassed 98 wins, 107 losses and 74 draws across all competitions for the Rocky Mountain clubs.
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.
