Real Salt Lake Conclude Three-Game Week with 2025 Rocky Mountain Cup Leg One at Colorado

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Real Salt Lake Conclude Three-Game Week with 2025 Rocky Mountain Cup Leg One at Colorado

May 16, 2025 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
Real Salt Lake News Release


HERRIMAN, Utah - Real Salt Lake (4-7-2, 14 points, 11th West / 22nd Shield) concludes its first three-game week of the 2025 season with Saturday's 7:30p MT kickoff in suburban Denver against Colorado Rapids (4-5-4, 16 points, 9th West / 20th Shield), the first of two Rocky Mountain Cup legs between the teams this season. The match is available via Apple TV+ / MLS Season Pass, with Neil Sika and Lloyd Sam (ENG) on the call, as are Jose Bauz and Ivan Kasanzew (SPN).

Saturday's jaunt across the Rockies continues a run that sees RSL play seven of 10 overall on the road from April 12 - May 31. Following this week's Dallas and Portland draws - the first of the season - RSL is back on the road for three of four away to end the month of May with trips to Colorado, Austin and LA Galaxy in the coming weeks, all prior to hosting nine of 11 at home from June 14 - August 6. RSL next hosts MLS-leading and Champions Cup Finalist Vancouver on Utah soil on Sat., May 24 (7:30p MT kickoff - tickets at www.RSL.com/tickets).

With Wednesday's 0-0 home draw against Portland Timbers FC, Real Salt Lake has now earned back-to-back results for the first time in 15 games played across all competitions this season, the Club's fourth clean sheet coming on the heels of the 1-1 draw at Dallas last weekend. Wednesday's scoreless draw - played without the suspended Justen Glad (caution accumulation) and William Agada (two yellows at Dallas), both of whom are expected to return Saturday - saw the red-hot Diego Luna held scoreless for the first time in four games.

Luna continues to lead RSL with a team-high seven goals this season in 12 games played, landing him just one goal shy of his entire 2024 total, a campaign which earned him both MLS All-Star and MLS Young Player of the Year honors. Luna joins Captain Emeka Eneli, holding midfielder Braian Ojeda and DP Diogo Gonçalves as players to have appeared in all but one of RSL's 13 MLS games this season, each trailing "Iron Man" GK Rafael Cabral, the lone player to have appeared in every minute of the Club's 15 games played across multiple competitions.

A year ago, the three-game, 2024 edition of the fan-created Rocky Mountain Cup was captured by Colorado, with a come-from-behind effort by the Rapids at home in a 3-2 July win. Despite the series setback, the Claret-and-Cobalt have won 15 of the last 18 Rocky Mountain Cups (2013, 2015, 2024), including the disputed 2020 edition. With the RMC moving to just two games in 2025, RSL needs to win the series outright to recapture the Cup. The Rapids, as holders, retain the Cup with a win or two draws this season; the teams meet on Utah soil on Sat., Oct. 4 at America First Field.

Should RSL score first Saturday at Colorado, it could be good omen, as RSL has now recorded a 38W-7L-13T record when scoring first during the Pablo Mastroeni era. All four RSL victories this season have come when scoring first (Seattle, Houston, LA Galaxy and at San Diego), while the team also owns three losses (at home against Herediano, San Diego, away at Nashville) when taking the 1-0 lead, along with Saturday's draw at Dallas.

Recent weeks have seen several RSL players achieve various milestones, as 18-year-old Academy product Zavier Gozo earned his first-ever quartet of MLS starts, the Eagle Mountain, Utah-native going the full 90 minutes on the right wing in three of the last four games in place of once-injured Polish international Dominik Marczuk, who returned midway through the second half at Dallas to bolster a short-handed Utah side.

The win at San Diego and the subsequent loss at Vancouver also marked the Claret-and-Cobalt debut for 25-year-old FW William Agada, acquired three-plus weeks ago from Sporting Kansas City at the close of the primary transfer window, and now the 222nd player in RSL's 21-season Major League Soccer history.

Agada's former Kansas City captain, winger Johnny Russell, has not yet appeared for RSL after the free-agent acquisition arrived in Utah just under two weeks ago, joining the team on the trips to San Diego and Vancouver but not dressing until this week's matches against Dallas and Portland. Second-year D/M Noel Caliskan started and played impressively for the full 90 minutes at right back in both the 1-1 draw at Dallas and the 0-0 home match against Portland, making his 2025 first-team debuts. The German-born Caliskan was drafted out of Loyola Marymount University in 2023 by the Timbers, for whom he played MLS, Open Cup and MLS NEXT Pro action during his rookie season before signing with Real Monarchs a year ago.

Agada was unavailable Wednesday at Portland due to a controversial second yellow card received with just under a half-hour remaining at Dallas, but is expected to return Saturday in Colorado. RSL homegrown DF Justen Glad was also unavailable on Wednesday, as his early first-half yellow card triggered the Club's first caution accumulation suspension of 2025. DF Alex Katranis remains one caution away from serving a similar suspension, as does MF Diego Luna, while MF Braian Ojeda is two yellow cards away.

That 3-1 victory at San Diego on April 26 also marked Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni's 100th career coaching win across all competitions for the two Rocky Mountain Cup competitors, RSL (2021-present) and Colorado (2014-17). The former U.S. World Cup stalwart has now amassed 100 wins, 111 losses and 75 draws across all competitions for the Utah/Denver-based sides. Last June in Kansas City, Mastroeni earned his 50th win across all competitions with RSL in a wild 4-3 road decision, with the 2-0 reg. season win over LA Galaxy on April 5 marking his 50th MLS victory with RSL. Since August, 2021, in Utah, Mastroeni's all-time coaching record is 61-54-39.

So far this season, RSL owns just a 2-4-2 / 8-point road record this season across all competitions under the guidance of fifth-year Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni, despite each of the last two seasons marking the Claret-and-Cobalt's best road campaigns in team history. The 2023 side posted an 11W-8L-5T away mark across all competitions, a record which includes both that year's Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Semifinal loss to Houston, and its road loss and elimination draw in the first and third games of the teams' 2023 Audi MLS Cup Playoff series on the Shell Energy Stadium turf.

A year ago, Mastroeni's men registered the second-most road points in RSL history, with a 5W-4L-8T MLS reg. season mark, one which does NOT includes its heartbreaking, multi-goal Leagues Cup elimination loss to the Dynamo following a home win over Atlas FC.

During each of Pablo's previous three full seasons at the RSL helm, the Club has increased its annual point total (47 in 2022, 50 in 2023 and 59 last year), while increasing its Western Conference table position as well (7th in 2022, 5th in 2023 and 3rd last year). The 2025 campaign features RSL's pursuit of a Conference-best fifth consecutive postseason berth, a seventh in the last eight seasons and its 15th in the last 18 years.

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.

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