Welcome back to storylines.
Major League Soccer returns this weekend, amidst much fanfare and excitement, with a slew of mouthwatering opening-round fixtures and matchups sure to crackle the nerves and excite hopes and dreams for one’s team.
Fresh from a scoreless draw in its CONCACAF Champions Cup opener against Herediano, Pablo Mastroeni’s men open their domestic MLS account with a trip to PayPal Park to take on the San Jose Earthquakes, in what certainly promises to be a tantalizing affair against a certain former skipper and an iconic American manager.
Wednesday, crucially, was the campaign opener, but the season in full begins now, and here in storylines, we preview some interesting facts and talking points certainly worth keeping an eye out for.
Building Up for a New Era: New Signings Will Be Crucial
By all accounts, the 2024 season represented its own specific flashpoint in Real Salt Lake’s 21-year-history, and compellingly, too.
2009 brought about the club’s maiden, and currently sole, MLS Cup title in its entire trophy cabinet, only a year after Yura Movsisyan’s heroics earned the side its inaugural postseason qualification berth in 2008, while 2011 saw it become the first-ever modern-era MLS team to reach the CONCACAF Champions League final, amongst a host of other collective milestones all impressive for a variety of reasons.
2024, though, throughout the regular season at least, delivered its achievements in heaps and spades on the collective back of all of which culminated in RSL’s highest-scoring term in its domestic season history and, as a part consequence, highest single-season accrued point total in all of the club’s years of existence up until now.
Both mightily impressive feats, it must be said, but now all in the rearview. And this week, the club’s attention zeroes in almost predatorily on the new season, with the onus now placed on Mastroeni and Co. to chart the on-pitch course towards the construction of what it hopes will be a truly glorious era, and indeed the first in a long time for the Club. Not since Jason Kreis’ championship win in the final year of the noughties have the Claret-and-Cobalt felt the unfettered taste of pure footballing immortality.
Central to achieving this, of course, will be the rapid adaptation and assimilation of RSL’s five biggest signings so far during the winter transfer window. Brazilian goalkeeper Rafael Cabral, alongside defenders Kobi Henry and Sam Junqua, midfielder Tyler Wolff and Ghanaian striker Forster Ajago were all given their debuts by Mastroeni on Wednesday at Herediano, with Cabral, Henry and Ajago handed starts in their Claret-Cobalt debuts.
In a combative, mostly arduous contest, the quintet provided encouraging, resilient showings faced up against adverse, hostile circumstances, with Junqua and Ajago, in particular, both coming ever-so-close to scoring their first goals with chances from point-blank ranges.
Alongside them, Australian striker Ariath Piol also represents an exciting prospect up front, having also impressed during preseason, and could be in line to make his first start or appearance against Bruce Arena’s Earthquakes on Saturday.
A mix of player profiles, characteristics, and attributes denotes that the sextet of RSL’s winter additions bring with them an abundance of youth, energy, vigor, and experience, and alongside the strength and pre-existing experience of returning stars such as Emeka Eneli, Diego Luna, Justen Glad, Braian Ojeda, Alex Katranis and more, are expected to constitute part of a backbone and player foundation upon which a new legacy and era of achievements can be built.
Up Against a Familiar Foe
In what is surely expected to dominate headlines leading up to the weekend’s blockbuster opener, RSL, against San Jose on Saturday, are set to go up against former captain and top goalscorer Chicho Arango, providing extra incandescence to what is typically an already fiery occasion.
Indeed, if, as previously evident, RSL did truly enjoy a record-breaking 2024 regular-season campaign, Arango represented perhaps the brightest symbol – during the first half of the season at least – contributing 17 goals and 12 assists across 26 starts and 30 total appearances which equaled the club’s single-season individual goalscoring record.
On the back of an anticlimactic personal campaign at the end of last year, the 29-year-old departed the Utah side in January 2025 in a deal to join the Earthquakes in what will make this weekend’s reunion at PayPal park an especially tantalizing prospect.
In many ways, though, to this author at least, Saturday marks its own mini-flashpoint for RSL – an unshackling from the club’s impressive past to make room for its quest for a new glorious future, highlighted by a contest against its former captain — who reigned at the heart of it — as a symbol of this crucial juncture in the club’s history.
2024 and all the successes that came with it are at an end. 2025, however, and the promises it carries, begins now.
