SANDY, UT (Friday, April 7, 2023) – Real Salt Lake (1-4-0, 3 pts., 11th West) return home this weekend for MLS Matchday Seven, welcoming 2022 expansion side Charlotte FC (1-3-2, 5 pts., 14th East) on Saturday (7:30p MT kickoff on the Apple MLS Season Pass w/ Adrian Healey & Cobi Jones (ENG) / Alejandro Figueredo & Luis Gerardo Bucci (SPN); 7:00p MT radio pre-game w/ David James & Jay Nolly via www.KSLSports.com / 1280 AM / 97.5 FM and www.KSLNewsRadio.com / 1160 AM.
Real Salt Lake returns home Saturday looking to snap an active four-game losing streak – which includes back-to-back home losses to start a season for the first time in RSL’s 19-year history – by welcoming 2022 expansion side Charlotte FC to Utah for the first time, the first-ever meeting between the two clubs. In RSL’s first-ever home meetings against visiting expansion sides, the Claret-and-Cobalt are 9W-4L-3T, including the 0-4 loss to 2023 expansion team St. Louis just two weeks ago on March 25. Previous sides to win in their first-ever visits to Utah are: Toronto (2007), Atlanta (2017), LAFC (2018), and now St. Louis (2023).
Starting this weekend, RSL’s America First Field home will host 3 of its next 4 and 4 of its next 7 contests as RSL seeks to recapture the form that saw the Club post an 18W-7L-9T home record in 2021/22 MLS campaigns. With Thursday’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup draw, RSL will travel to Las Vegas on Wednesday, April 26 to face the USL Lights in Third-Round Open Cup action.
RSL welcomes Charlotte FC to its Sandy, Utah home looking to earn a result and avoid a five-game losing streak, something which has happened just twice in Claret-and-Cobalt history, both during RSL’s expansion 2005 season. RSL dropped five consecutive MLS contests from May 21-June 18, 2005, and later that year went on to drop 10 straight from August 10-October 5, 2005. The current four-game losing streak is the fifth drought to hit four straight in 19 MLS seasons, RSL seeing equal ruts in 2007, 2011, 2017 and 2019.
As part of the previously mentioned 10-game losing streak in 2005, RSL did drop six consecutive home games at Rice-Eccles Stadium up on the University of Utah campus, the lone home losing streak of three MLS games or more in 19 seasons.
For a fourth consecutive week, RSL will once again look to improve upon its record in “bounceback” games under Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni, RSL now 10W-5L-6D, earning a result in 16 of 21 matches following a loss and suffering back-to-back losses now just five times in the former USMNT star’s 59 games at the RSL helm. Under Mastroeni’s leadership, RSL is now 13-9-5 (W-L-T) on Utah soil against MLS opponents following last year’s dominant “Decision Day” win over Portland.
The active streak of four consecutive losses represents three of the five total “back-to-back” ruts experienced by RSL since Mastroeni took over in August, 2021, RSL dropping consecutive home games just once before in each Mastroeni season prior to this March 2023 skid, first in late 2021 and again in late 2022.
Despite dropping the last two matches at home over the last three weeks, RSL will once again look to improve upon its record in “bounceback” games under Mastroeni, RSL now 10-4-6 (W-L-T), earning a result in 16 of 20 matches following a loss and suffering back-to-back losses just four times in the former USMNT star’s 58 games at the RSL helm. Under Mastroeni’s leadership, RSL is now 13-9-5 (W-L-T) on Utah soil against MLS opponents, ahead of next Saturday’s home match against Charlotte FC, the first of a five-game span that sees three matches at home and five of the next seven.
