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SANDY - Real Salt Lake will host Toronto FC on Saturday, June 25 after returning home from a mid-week match in the Windy City against the Chicago Fire, which ended in a 0-0 draw.
RSL moved to 6-3-5 with the draw and remain in fourth in the Western Conference behind LA Galaxy (first), FC Dallas (second) and Seattle Sounders FC (third).
RSL's Will Johnson saw his first start against Chicago since returning home from international duty last week. Head Coach Jason Kreis was happy to have him back in the lineup and told the press, "Will is an important player for us. The ground he covers and the energy he brings to the game for us is hugely important."
This weekend's match may be without forward Fabian Espindola as he had some hamstring trouble early in the match and was subbed out in the seventh minute.
The young Collen Warner saw another big game and start as he saw 84 minutes of play. Kreis was impressed with his performance and said, "Another night where I think Collen did quite a few good things. Is he having a 100% game for us right now? No, but he's a very young player and he's being asked to play a very difficult position."
With their latest draw, RSL has now ended in a tie in the last three matches, but Kreis wasn't looking at that as a negative, especially despite their slimming roster. "Listen, you can look at it with a glass half empty, I will look at it as half full. That's three games without a loss. We don't have any forwards, so I think that's ok."
Despite their slimming roster due to injury and other absences, RSL has had to do a lot of restructuring and is still working as hard as they can with what they are able to do.
"Guys are having to play different positions, but we just have to get on with it," said RSL Captain Kyle Beckerman."There's another game on the schedule and you have to play it. If we play with a couple midfielders up top, so be it. We have to be able and try to score some goals."
And that's just what they will do when they return to Rio Tinto on Saturday. The first touch against Toronto is set for 7:00 p.m.
