RSL wastes fastest start in club history in 3-2 loss to Vancouver

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Real Salt Lake's fastest start ended in a 3-2 loss to Vancouver.
Zavier Gozo and Diego Luna scored early, but RSL couldn't hold the lead.
Vancouver's comeback extends their unbeaten streak; RSL remains winless in May.

SANDY — It was the best start in Real Salt Lake history.

Utah native Zavier Gozo scored his first MLS goal in the opening minutes and Diego Luna bagged his eighth of the year two minutes later for a 2-0 RSL lead after four minutes Saturday at America First Field.

It was the fastest two-goal start in club history and the fastest in MLS history since 2018. But almost as quickly as it came together, it fell apart.

Sebastian Berhalter found Brian White on a corner kick in the 20th minute, and a handball on William Agada gave White his second goal in the 25th minute to tie things up 2-2.

"Obviously, disappointing," head coach Pablo Mastroeni said. "We worked on getting in front of goal this week and did a really good job at that, and then give up a corner kick and a penalty kick."

DREAM START FOR RSL 😱

Zavier Gozo puts @RealSaltLake ahead on Vancouver less than a minute into the match.

📺 #MLSSeasonPass: https://t.co/e9zm1ISGtQ pic.twitter.com/xwOgJ3ZEs3
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 25, 2025

The deadlock lasted for 65 minutes as it looked like RSL and Vancouver might reach their first stalemate result since 2022. But the home team gave the ball away and Vancouver turned around to find Pedro Vite on the edge of the box, and the dream start turned to a nightmare.

Vite fired one past Rafael Cabral for a 3-2 final score to give RSL its ninth loss of the season and third in the last five matches. RSL remains winless in May, with a pair of road matches in Austin and Los Angeles next week to close out the month and the first half of the season.

"I feel like, coming out against the best team in the league, we were hungry," Gozo said of the hot start. "We were looking to make a point. I think we did that in the first 20 minutes, but, I mean, we need to maintain that."

Vancouver leads the league with 31 points and saw its unbeaten streak extended to nine games in MLS play with the comeback win over RSL. The Claret and Cobalt, meanwhile, fall to three spots below the playoff line.

"We need to be better," captain Emeka Eneli said. "It's just about moving on to the next game and keeping the confidence in the group. It's a very quick turnaround, so there's not much time to think about this loss. Kind of have to move on with it."

The two-game week on the road begins Wednesday for RSL against Austin FC at 6:30 p.m. MDT.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.