Dearest loyal readers, welcome back to storylines.
As is tradition, we make it a point always to show our appreciation and thank you for your continued, relentless support hitherto for this Claret-and-Cobalt locker room. Home or away, far or near, on both the good days and the rougher ones, your eternal, undying faith and support in this club abounds, and for that we remain ever so grateful, moreso than you could ever possibly know.
Football is back! And the Claret-and-Cobalt are back again!
After a one-month break to accommodate both the All-Star festivities in Columbus and the return of Leagues Cup, now Major League Soccer - returns to action this weekend with a flurry of tantalizing midseason fixtures to kick off the final stretch towards the MLS Cup Playoffs.
After more than two weeks to rest, reset, recharge and recover, RSL resumes its own domestic season on Saturday with the visit of the San Jose Earthquakes to America First Field for the first time this season. Kickoff for this game - RSL expecting yet another electric, 21,000-plus, standing-room-only crowd in Sandy - is slated for 7:30 pm MT.
Next week on Saturday, August 31, then sees Pablo’s men back at America First Field for a second consecutive week with a clash against New England Revolution, in the second of RSL’s nine remaining regular-season games, before heading into the last October postseason. Kickoff for this game is also slated for 7:30 pm MT.
RSL head into the San Jose fixture in search of a return to winning ways and off the back of a frustrating defeat to the Houston Dynamo in the team’s last match, which all but spelled elimination from the group stage of the Leagues Cup, as well a 3-2 away reversal to Colorado Rapids in the Rocky Mountain Cup final in its most recent MLS outing way back on July 20.
This next set of impending games thus presents an opportunity for the team to record a much-needed victory at home to bounce back and author a good run of form in its pursuit of a top Western Conference playoff berth in October, and possible Supporters Shield glory come the season’s conclusion.
One thing is for sure, however, with only nine regular-season games left to go before the start of playoffs, we’re well now into the business end of the season and the stakes are much higher now than ever before. The loss in Houston on August 5 now means, by RSL’s lofty standards, nothing but a win will suffice heading into Saturday’s crucial encounter, in the club’s dogged, relentless pursuit of excellence, and no one understands the gravity of this more than Pablo Mastroeni himself.
It’s crunch time, and the Claret-and-Cobalt go marching in, and as always in storylines we preview some of the most compelling narratives and information, ahead of a fresh round of tanalizing fixtures, which could swing the pendulum in our favor.
Storylines
- Get Behind Us, One More Time: RSL head into its concluding set of reg-season fixtures with six of its final nine games to be played at America First Field. The home-heavy schedule offers the team a significant advantage, emphasizing the importance and need for a strong home form and support, and your fan contributions will be most crucial in helping the team achieve success. The upcoming games also provide the team with a bounce-back opportunity from its frustrating Leagues Cup exit.
- Exciting New Signings and Debuts Incoming: Saturday night’s parley against San Jose also presents an opportunity for debut appearances for several RSL new signings. The game will also be the team’s first in 18 months without the services of Andrés Gómez, and Pablo will no doubt be looking to get his new signings up to speed quickly now in the wake of the Colombian’s departure.
- Chicho the Magnificent: RSL captain Chicho Arango is set to make his first MLS appearance for the club since his four-game suspension back in July, again seeking some personal absolution and on the precipice of more individual greatness at the head of the Claret-and-Cobalt glitterati.
Where to Watch
You can catch RSL vs San Jose on Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass right here https://tv.apple.com/
Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. MT on Saturday, Aug. 24
The Deep Dive
- Get Behind Us, One More Time: RSL head into its concluding set of reg-season fixtures with six of its final nine games to be played at America First Field. The home-heavy schedule offers the team a significant advantage, emphasizing the importance and need for a strong home form and support, and your fan contributions will be most crucial in helping the team achieve success. The upcoming games also provide the team with a bounce-back opportunity from its frustrating Leagues Cup exit.
We’re back at America First Field this Saturday, so get behind us - one more time.
The 2024 MLS regular season has now finally reached its defining point. With the Leagues Cup almost now successfully concluded, teams all across the division can now fully turn their attentions towards the pursuit of a playoff place en route to potential Supporters Shield glory.
RSL head into its own final stretch of matches with four of its next five matches and six of its final nine regular season games to be decided at America First Field, where home form and support will surely be a crucial factor.
Having been one of the division’s most in-form and premier sides all season long, Pablo Mastroeni’s charges have been tipped by pundits to be among the favorites predicted to launch a potentially successful assault for a first Supporters Shield title since 2009, and for good measure. RSL began the season in record-breaking form, blowing any tempered preseason predictions right out of the water and recording eight wins in the team’s opening 14 MLS regular season matches which catapulted the Claret-and-Cobalt to the summit of the Western Conference standings in mid-March, a position the team held up until mid-July. Along the way, Pablo’s men set a new Club record for the most consecutive games without league defeat, going a total of 15 successive games in 103 days without tasting defeat between March 9 and June 22. The streak also matched the second-longest unbeaten run in Major League Soccer history, set only three times before (Portland, 2013 and 2018; Colorado, 2016).
In a hugely impressive season thus far, certainly, by all metrics, RSL currently boast 44 points from its opening 25 reg-season games, formulated by 12 wins, eight draws, five losses, and a whopping 51 goals scored across domestic matches this campaign, culminating in the Club’s best start to a season in over a decade. The Claret-and-Cobalt now sit third in the Western Conference rankings.
In a wide-bracket playoff system where everyone will naturally consider themselves as being in with a chance, only the truly best teams are considered to stand with a chance at glory, and the stats will tell you this season that RSL are one of the best.
But in the race towards playoff qualification, Pablo’s boys will first have to get through nine ‘finals,’ with six of them being at home, and your support and faith in this team will be crucial in its pursuit of excellence and immortality come the end of the season.
Playing at home will also almost definitely provide an advantage, RSL have amassed an 8-2-1 (25 points) record in MLS games at America First Field this season, scoring an impressive 28 goals in the process including multiple five-goal performances in wins against Colorado Rapids, Austin FC, and Atlanta United. Simply put, RSL are a formidable force at home, and you have been an eternal part of that success this season with your undying faith in this team, and your support will be needed now more than ever as the team - your team embarks on its latest nine-game quest.
As aforementioned, the game will also provide an opportunity for absolution from the frustrations of the Leagues Cup defeat in Houston in the team’s last game, and the Rocky Mountain Cup final defeat to Colorado Rapids in its most recent MLS fixture. The defeat in Houston was an unacceptable capitulation, particularly for a club with such lofty standards as RSL possess, a club in consistent, relentless pursuit of excellence, and everyone at the Club recognizes that and is thoroughly committed to its pursuit of success.
The standards and price of greatness are steep and utterly ruthless in their demands. Such costly demands do not lend themselves to, neither do they allow for, the manner of the Houston Leagues Cup disappointment.
However, part of success and greatness is also understanding that failure, whilst intolerable, remains inevitable, and in the end, what matters is the ability to rise and go again, in defiant refusal of concession - refusing to give up.
As the late great Nelson Mandela once quoted,
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
This is the sort of mentality, and sort of standards, that consistently crowns winners, the mentality of champions, and something Pablo is certainly no stranger to, and no doubt he and the rest of his coaching staff will emphasize this as they get the boys ready for Saturday’s blockbuster. Pablo and the boys will square up against San Jose with a point to prove, and will be aiming to banish the painful memories of its most recent frustrations with a commanding display on Saturday. With so much success already achieved this season, we stand on the precipice of potentially even more on the horizon, starting this weekend, and this team, your Real Salt Lake, need your support now more than ever.
- Exciting New Signings and Debuts Incoming: Saturday night’s parley against San Jose also presents an opportunity for debut appearances for several RSL new signings. The game will also be the team’s first in 18 months without the services of Andrés Gómez, and Pablo will no doubt be looking to get his new signings up to speed quickly now in the wake of the Colombian’s departure.
In what has certainly been an action-packed season thus far, Saturday night’s MLS restart provides the opportunity for more excitement with the potential debuts of several RSL new signings.
The Claret-and-Cobalt were heralded as one of the biggest winners in the summer transfer window, adding the likes of attackers Lachlan Brook, Dominik Marczuk, Diogo Gonçalves, Benji Michel, and defender Javian Brown to its ranks.
With Michel having already made his debut, Saturday night and the next few games could provide further opportunities for RSL fans to size up their most recent player additions, and with fan favorite Andrés Gómez now departed for the French Ligue 1, it offers an exciting prospect in terms of the potential make-up of the team’s new look attack and how Pablo’s new attacking pieces can contribute to sufficiently replace and perhaps even surpass the 21-year-old’s exploits on the Wasatch front.
Polish native Marczuk (pronounced mar - CHOOK) arrives at RSL from Jagiellonia Bialystok, in the Polish top division, where he was the reigning Polish Ekstraklasa Young Player of the Season. A versatile attacking midfielder, the 20-year-old registered seven goals and a further 15 assists across 39 games during his previous 12 months for the Ekstraklasa side which helped guide them to the Polish Ekstraklasa championship title during the 2023/24 season for the first time in the Club’s 100-year history.
23-year-old Aussie Lachlan Brook features as another addition to RSL’s attacking arsenal. Capable of playing out wide on either side, or through the middle, the prolific winger arrives after a solitary season with the Western Sydney Wanderers, of the A-League Australian top-flight division, where he scored 14 goals in 25 games across all competitions, including a five-star five-goal performance in his home return during an Australian cup game against Floreat Athena, which established a new Cup record.
Cream of the new crop though, perhaps, is new designated player and attacking midfielder, Diogo Gonçalves. The 27-year-old arrives on the Wasatch Front from Danish powerhouse FC Copenhagen where he registered 21 goals and eight assists across various competitions in 57 games for the Superliga side – including 14 goals in 38 league matches for FCK, officially recognized as the most successful Danish side in European competition.
A veteran of European football, Gonçalves also brings with him valuable European footballing experience from the UEFA Champions League having made 31 total appearances throughout his career in Europe’s premier club competition, with 13 of those appearances coming for Copenhagen, and registering three goals for the club. The 27-year-old’s impressive Champions League goalscoring CV also includes a crucial penalty conversion against Manchester United in a narrow 4-3 win against the Premier League giants back in Nov. 2023.
Defender Javian Brown features as the final RSL new signing on this list aiming to make his bow for the Club and get off to a solid start having only recently joined the Club from the Vancouver Whitecaps. Born on March 9, 1999, in Kingston, Jamaica, Brown was selected 23rd overall by Vancouver in the 2021 MLS SuperDraft following three seasons playing college soccer with the Univ. of South Florida. The former Harbour View (Jamaica) professional started 81 of his 107 appearances with the Whitecaps during his four seasons (2021-2024) at BC Place, recording two goals and adding 10 assists across all competitions. Brown helped Vancouver win back-to-back Canadian Championships in 2022 and 2023, also scoring his first MLS goal on July 30, 2022, against Nashville. Unlike his attacking colleagues, Brown functions primarily as a right back and is particularly known and rated highly for his pace, ball-playing ability and distribution, and work rate. The 25-year-old is also equally adept at operating at center back, with his versatility also being one of his greatest qualities.
Saturday’s visit of San Jose could thus offer a glimpse at the tantalizing prospect of RSL’s new boys lining up alongside the likes of the already established cornerstones of the team in Captain Chicho Arango, Diego Luna, Braian Ojeda, Justen Glad, and more. Certainly, the outlook of Marczuk, Brook, and/or Gonçalves lining up alongside Chicho and Luna in attack makes for a mouthwatering probability - A potentially unstoppable star-studded attacking force the prospect of which alone would be enough to strike fear into the hearts of opponents. And with Gómez now departed for a new adventure in France, Saturday night could be the first opportunity for at least one of RSL’s new attacking signings to make their first start for the club in the now vacant right-wing role.
This weekend will also represent the Claret-and-Cobalt’s first game in 18 months without its fan-favorite Colombian winger amongst its ranks. However, it must be noted the efficiency with which RSL has conducted its summer transfer business. The departure of Gómez has been soothed, and perhaps even eclipsed, by the four attacking acquisitions RSL have so ruthlessly completed this window, in addition to Brown as a defensive centerpiece, who are all comfortably expected to provide the team with more quality depth and standard across the board, setting the Club up comfortably for future success.
- History Beckons for the Magnificent: RSL captain Chicho Arango is set to make his first MLS appearance for the club since his four-game suspension, again seeking some personal absolution and on the precipice of more individual greatness at the head of the Claret-and-Cobalt glitterati.
RSL captain and leader Chicho Arango is set to make his sensational, long-awaited return to MLS action in Saturday night’s regular season resumption at America First Field, in what will surely be a welcome sight for fans.
The Colombian striker picked up a four-match ban, which included three RSL games and the recently concluded MLS All-Star game last month, as punishment for violating MLS policy, in his last domestic season appearance during the team's 0-3 away defeat to Portland Timbers.
RSL’s swashbuckling captain, standing on the precipice of more greatness, continues to be the team’s star man and the most singular leading light in Pablo’s arsenal. Indeed, whilst the Club as a whole has enjoyed a stellar, record-breaking campaign this year, on an individual level, Chicho’s has been glorious.
In the games before his suspension, the Colombian striker made history - scoring a record-breaking 17th league goal of the season, and in the process, tying the Club’s single-season goal record set by RSL legend Alvaro Saborio all the way back in 2012, more than a decade ago. Such incredible feats now mean that the Magnificent just needs one more goal to break the longstanding record, meaning should he score on Saturday he would become the singular highest single-season goalscorer in the franchise’s 20-year history!
Back in June, in the 4-3 victory against Sporting Kansas, Chicho provided the game-winning assist late on for Matt Crooks’ first RSL goal to become just the third-ever RSL player, out of 210, to have a 10g/10a campaign, joining Jeff Cunningham (2006) and Albert Rusnák (2021).
Keeping our focus in June, against Austin, he also became just the eighth player in Major League Soccer history to reach 50 career MLS regular season goals in 79 games or fewer, and his eventual hat trick in that game also made him the third-fastest MLS player to reach 25 goals and assists in a season this year, with only 17 games played at the time.
Despite his two-game MLS suspension, Chicho still leads the MLS Golden Boot race with 17 goals in 23 games and 21 starts.
The undisputed King on the Wasatch Front, and the golden jewel in the crown of the RSL project. Chicho the Magnificent. The 29-year-old stands unchallenged, and above all, incomparable, and without equal.
With Chicho back leading the line for RSL’s exciting, star-studded, new-look attack, America First Field will certainly be the place to be this weekend, and Pablo will no doubt be counting on his fearless Captain to deliver the goods again in this final stretch of the season.
As we look towards the future, the team needs your voice and your support now more than ever as it fights to deliver a first piece of silverware to America First Field for the first time since 2009. The risks are high, and the roads are perilous, but the rewards are boundless and the fruits are a treasure certainly worth the peril.
Ambition, courage, success, and the promise of more to come.
Now more than ever, Real Salt Lake is on the rise and things look progressively bright for the future, and as our loyal, passionate supporters, you have proven a fundamental part of that ascension and have earned your individual places as legends in your own right.
So get behind us one more time, in this final lap. One voice for glory, and honor, and immortality. We are Real Salt Lake, we are Claret-and-Cobalt, and may the odds be ever in our favor.
For tickets, schedules, info, news, and more about the Western Conference’s great entertainers, visit rsl.com/tickets
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