SANDY, Utah (Tuesday, July 2, 2024) – Real Salt Lake (10-3-7 / 37 points / 3rd West) resumes its 2024 MLS campaign at home with two games this week, starting off with Wednesday’s Independence Day Fireworks Celebration Wednesday against the Houston Dynamo (8-6-6 / 30 points / 6th West). RSL will host Atlanta on Saturday, the back-to-back home games critical as RSL seeks to remain in both MLS Supporters Shield and Western Conference top-seed contention. Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni’s team will look to rebound from its June 22 home loss to LA Galaxy, which snapped a Club-record 15-game unbeaten run, and improve upon its 6-2-1 / 19-point home mark thus far in 2024. Kickoff Wednesday in Sandy is at 7:30p MT, available on Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Max Bretos and Brian Dunseth (ENG) and Francisco X. Rivera and Martin Zuniga (SPN) on the call from America First Field.
RSL – now three points shy of both LAFC and the LA Galaxy in the race for Western Conference supremacy –follows up this week’s home games on July 3 (Houston) and July 6 (Atlanta) with a three-game road week starting on July 13 to Portland, a week that also sees trips to LAFC (July 17) and Colorado (July 20) prior to the 2024 MLS All-Star Game in Columbus (July 24), featuring both Captain Chicho Arango and Homegrown Justen Glad.
The 2024 Leagues Cup begins with an August 1 home game vs. Atlas prior to an August 5 trip to Houston. RSL and Houston faced off on a Club-record six occasions last year, with a pair of regular-season matches followed up by the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Semifinal and an intense three-game first-round playoff series, featuring two shootouts. The Dynamo eliminated RSL in both the Open Cup and the 2023 MLS postseason.
Real Salt Lake v Houston Dynamo – MLS Matchday 24
America First Field – Sandy, UT
Wednesday, July 3, 2024 – 7:30p MT
STREAK SNAPPED
Last time out, RSL lost an MLS match for the first time since March 9, falling at home 0-1 to the LA Galaxy in a match marred by Chicho Arango’s head injury just 16 minutes into the game. RSL’s 15-game MLS unbeaten run established a new record for the Club’s longest single-season streak in team history – while also matching the Portland Timbers (2013, 2018) and Colorado Rapids (2016) for the second-longest in MLS regular-season history (FC Dallas’ 19 games unbeaten in 2010). In RSL’s 20-season history, RSL also enjoyed a 16-game run from 2013 into 2014 (including a 12-game single-season run in 2014), and a Club-record 18-game unbeaten streak from July 2010 to April 2011 (2010 includes a 14-game single-season run, RSL’s previous best).
ATTACKING ROLLERCOASTER FOR RSL
RSL suffered two shutouts in its last game week, blanked at Montreal in a 0-0 result and in the Galaxy loss eight days later. Between the two, however, RSL rebounded to score four goals on the road for the second time (April 20 at Chicago) this season June 19 in Kansas City. The scoreless draw was RSL’s second of the season (also posting a disappointing 0-0 at home against a rotated Columbus side on April 13), while the donut against the Galaxy was just the fourth shutout suffered by RSL this season (Feb. 21 at Miami in a 2-0 loss). Conversely, RSL has also scored five goals in a game twice this year, both at home; first on May 18 in the 5-3 comeback against Colorado, and two weeks later on June 1 in the 5-1 over Austin FC, RSL’s last home appearance prior to the Galaxy disappointment.
With both Chicho (16 goals) and Andrés Gómez (10 goals) securing double-digit goal totals this season, RSL has a pair of 10+ scorers in a single season for the first time since 2021 (Kreilach, 16 goals; Rusnák, 11 goals). Should Julio (six goals) or another player reach double-digits, RSL would have a 10+ goal-scoring trio for the first time ever.
RSL’s 40 goals scored this year ranks fourth in MLS (Miami, 48; LAFC/LA Galaxy 41 each) but lead the West over the Galaxy’s 37 scored. RSL no longer boasts the best goal differential in MLS this season, at plus-17, with both surging LAFC and Miami now at plus-18. Only three other teams have amassed double-digit goal differentials so far in 2024, as Columbus (plus-16), Cincinnati (plus-10) and LA Galaxy (plus-14) join RSL and LAFC / Miami.
DEFENSIVE VOLATILITY FOR RSL
The clean sheet logged at Montreal June 15 did mark the Club’s sixth of the year in 20 MLS reg. season games, with veteran GK Zac MacMath notching four of those six. Prior to conceding three June 19 in Kansas City, RSL had allowed just two goals in its previous 270 minutes played, at Seattle (1-1 draw) and v Austin (5-1 win) prior to the scoreless draw in Quebec. However, RSL has now allowed three goals on three different occasions in the last month or so, starting with May 18 at home against Colorado and then again on May 25 against Dallas.
