Football Season Guide

After reaching the semi-finals in the 2021 playoffs, Real Salt Lake advanced to the knockout stage again with a 3-1 win over Portland on the final day of the regular season, but this time were eliminated in the first round after losing in a penalty shootout to Austin. A win over Portland saw them leapfrog their direct rivals and finish the season in seventh place with 47 points, but one of the Western Conference leaders, Austin, were too much of a challenge. RSL struggled to score goals throughout the entire 2022 campaign. They netted only 43 times in 38 games, the third-worst record in the Western Conference behind Vancouver and Kansas City. To bolster the offence, head coach Pablo Mastroeni has signed speedy and dynamic Colombian winger Carlos Andres Gomez for more than three million euros. However, they are still quite understaffed in the centre-forward department, considering Mastroeni prefers to play with two strikers in a 4-4-2 system, as both Bobby Wood and Sergio Cordova have left the club. The club has also parted ways with a number of defenders, with fullbacks Aaron Herrera and Tate Schmitt leaving the club and centre back Johan Kappelhof also being released. New arrivals Delentz Pierre, Moses Mensah, Luis Rivera and Bret Halsey should at least provide reinforcements in defence, even if their chances of being in the starting XI are questionable for the time being.