Utah Side Follows Up Continental Clean Sheet w/ 2025 MLS Opener Against Chicho, Arena & Co.;
RSL Kicks Off 21st Campaign Unbeaten in Nine Overall Since Sept. 14;
Tickets Available for Wednesday, Feb. 26 Return Herediano Leg at America First Field via www.RSL.com/tickets;
2025 MLS Home Opener Next Sat., March 1 in Sandy
SAN JOSE, Calif. (Friday, Feb. 21, 2025) – Real Salt Lake (16-7-11, 59 points, 3rd West MLS in 2024) kicks off its 21st all-time MLS campaign Saturday night at PayPal Park against long-time Western Conference foe San Jose Earthquakes, squaring off against iconic American manager Bruce Arena and former RSL striker Cristian Arango. Saturday night’s 8:30p MT kickoff is available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Mark Rogondino & Heath Pearce (ENG) on the call, as are Carlos Mauricio Ramirez & Francisco Pinto (SPN).
RSL opens its MLS season in San Jose for the fourth time in its 21-year history, posting a 3W-0L-0T record in its three previous “MLS is BACK” matchups against the ‘Quakes (2010, 2011 and 2013 seasons). RSL has not allowed the Earthquakes to score in these occasions, the Claret-and-Cobalt retaining a 6-0 aggregate advantage.
Since that 2010 opener at San Jose, RSL owns seven wins and six draws against just two losses in 15 road openers, losing only at Chicago in 2017 and last year at MIA, after posting an 0W-4L-1T mark from 2005-09. Looking ahead to next Saturday, March 1 at home against Seattle, RSL boasts nine wins and nine draws versus just two losses in 20 all-time MLS home openers (dropping just 2018 v. LAFC and 2023 v. Austin), while also posting a 12W-1L-4T mark against Seattle on Utah soil, where the Rave Green have not won since 2011 in the MLS reg. season.
RSL arrived in the Bay Area late Thursday following Wednesday night’s 0-0 road draw away at Costa Rican Apertura champions CS Herediano in the first leg of its Round One 2025 CONCACAF Champions Cup series. Five RSL players made their Club debuts with the midweek continental fixture, as GK Rafael Cabral, DF Kobi Henry and FW Forster Ajago each started for Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni, while DF Sam Junqua and MF Tyler Wolff entered the match as substitutes.
A trio of late-summer 2024 acquisitions also started Wednesday night, as Portuguese Designated Player Diogo Gonçalves was named by CONCACAF as the game’s Michelob Ultra Player of the Match. Diogo was joined by Polish winger Dominik Marczuk and Australian attacker Lachlan Brook to provide creativity ahead of RSL’s staunch “Iron Man” pivots, Braian Ojeda and Emeka Eneli – both of whom led RSL in minutes last year. Eneli wore the Captain’s armband for the second time in his RSL career Wednesday night, the youngest to ever do it.
Fourth-year homegrown DF Bode Hidalgo started on the right with centerback Brayan Vera next to Henry and in front of Cabral, while left back Alex Katranis was removed from the match in the 19th minute after taking a close-range shot to the back of his head. Replaced by MLS veteran Junqua, other subs included the debutant Wolff, homegrown FW Zavier Gozo as well as the first appearance in 354 days by MF Pablo Ruiz, who played just three games last year after a meniscus injury in August, 2023, and an ACL setback in the opposite knee last March.
With Wednesday’s scoreless draw, RSL’s all-time record in CONCACAF Champions tourney games is now 11-5-7 (W-L-T), including a home mark of 8-1-2 (the lone home loss coming in the 2010/11 final to Monterrey) heading into this Wednesday’s return leg in Utah.
Now the page turns to Major League Soccer action, with RSL kicking off at San Jose, the same site/opponent of RSL’s last MLS reg. season road match. On October 5, 2024, RSL emerged with the full three points in a tense, 1-0 victory on Earthquakes turf – with a spectacular Diego Luna game-winner and the Club’s ninth clean sheet of 2024. The PayPal Park performance and Luna’s homecoming heroics improved RSL’s 2024 road record to 5-4-8 / 23 points, allowing Mastroeni’s side to accrue its second-highest road point total in 20 MLS seasons, trailing only the 28-point mark amassed in 2023 (11-7-5 / 38 points all competitions).
In January, RSL traded former striker Cristian “Chicho” Arango to San Jose in exchange for $1.4 million in General Allocation Money and an international spot, ending the former Colombian international’s 18-month stay on the Wasatch Front. During his 41 MLS reg. season matches with RSL, Arango scored 23 goals and added 14 assists.
Following Saturday’s visit to San Jose, the Claret-and-Cobalt return to Champions Cup mode on Wednesday, Feb. 26, hosting Herediano for the return leg of the 2025 CONCACAF First-Round series. With a 6:30p MT kickoff at America First Field, RSL looks to seize upon its fortress-like protection of home soil, where a year ago RSL lost just three home games across all competitions. RSL posted an impressively dominant 12-3-5 / 40-point mark across all competitions in 2024. Tickets to what will be RSL’s 35th international match in 21 years on Utah soil (17W-10L-7T) are NOW AVAILABLE at www.RSL.com/tickets.
RSL will then host Seattle Sounders FC next Saturday, March 1, at 2:30p MT, in the Club’s first 2025 MLS home match, with the schedule congestion potentially reaching eight games in 27 days to open 2025 with Champions Cup advancement over Herediano. RSL could add another potential home match on Wed., March 5 against reigning MLS Cup champions LA Galaxy in the Champions Cup Quarterfinal stage SHOULD the Utah side find itself able to advance past Herediano (whose championship-winning coach, Jafet Soto, played for RSL in 2006 and now serves as Sporting Director).
This 2025 foray marks RSL’s fourth CONCACAF Champions run, the most successful of which came in the 2010/11 seasons, when the Claret-and-Cobalt became the first-ever USA / MLS side to win its group stage, advancing to the Final, ultimately losing 2-3 on aggregate in a two-legged affair to Mexican power Monterrey with an historic 0-1 home loss at what was then known as Rio Tinto Stadium, in one of the Sandy venue’s most memorable moments. RSL returns to continental competition for the first time since 2016, when it lost to Liga MX power Tigres at the Quarterfinal stage.
Real Salt Lake previously faced Herediano during the group stage of the 2012 CONCACAF Champions League tourney, the teams grouped alongside Panama’s Tauro FC. RSL fell 0-1 away at Herediano in the San Jose-based Costa Rican National Stadium, 0-1, in a match marred by a Nat Borchers red card. After two wins against Tauro FC home and away, RSL needed a win to advance in the fourth and final group stage match against Herediano, instead suffering a scoreless draw as the Claret-and-Cobalt, without injured star striker Alvaro Saborio, were unable to score and support a clean sheet from GK Nick Rimando in a 0-0 result.
2025 CONCACAF CHAMPIONS CUP – FIRST ROUND
REAL SALT LAKE (18) v. HEREDIANO (47) – 180’ Aggregate Goals, Away Goal Tiebreaker
Game One – Wednesday, February 19 – HER 0 : 0 RSL @ Estadio Nacional – San José, Costa Rica
Game Two – Wednesday, February 26 – 6:30p MT @ America First Field – Sandy, Utah, USA
(Winner hosts LA Galaxy on Wed., March 5, traveling to Carson, CA on Wed., March 12)
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.
RSL opens 2025 seeking a fifth consecutive MLS postseason berth, and its seventh in the last eight years, on top of the highly-anticipated CONCACAF Champions Cup run, RSL’s fourth-ever continental opportunity and its first participation in the competition involving North American, Caribbean and Central American club teams since 2016.
Tickets and information for both competitions can be accessed at www.RSL.com/tickets.
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