Why Pablo Mastroeni is still asking questions

SANDY — Real Salt Lake is off to a dream start.

A narrow 1-0 loss on the road to Vancouver Whitecaps FC that easily could have gone the other way. Then statement wins over Western Conference powerhouse Seattle Sounders FC and Eastern big spenders Atlanta United FC, followed by a comeback victory over Austin FC.

That momentum carried into a road draw in San Diego FC, where RSL came from behind to equalize, committed numbers forward in search of three points, and were still attacking as the final whistle blew. They then returned home and to winning ways, dispatching Sporting Kansas City 3-1 to remain perfect at America First Field in 2026.

Six matches into the season, the club looks organized, confident, and fully bought in.

Meanwhile, head coach Pablo Mastroeni has already secured his future in Salt Lake, signing a contract extension that keeps him with the club through 2028.

Why the club believes

For Real Salt Lake leadership, the case for extending Mastroeni starts with results.

"At the end of the day, coaches are going to be judged on results," said Jason Kreis, a legendary player for RSL who is now the President of Soccer Operations for both RSL and the Utah Royals.

"In a professional atmosphere, you have to be judged on results. If we just look at the decision strictly from that, it's a no brainer."

Since taking over the club, Mastroeni has guided Real Salt Lake to the playoffs year after year- the foundation, Kreis says, for competing at the highest level.

"To consistently compete for championships, you have to make the playoffs," Kreis said. "That's the first bar that's established. Going forward, we raise that bar."

So the obvious question becomes: How exactly is Pablo Mastroeni doing it?

The answer begins, oddly enough, in a coffee shop.

The coffee roaster

On a quiet morning in Minneapolis two seasons ago, the day before Real Salt Lake faced Minnesota United, Mastroeni stood in line at a neighborhood coffee shop near the team hotel.

Most customers ordered their drink, stepped aside, and immediately began texting, scrolling Instagram, or watching TikTok videos.

Mastroeni didn't even take his phone out of his pocket.

Instead, he wandered over to the massive coffee roaster in the corner of the shop and started asking questions of the barista tending to it.

Where were the beans grown?

How were they harvested?

How long did they travel before arriving here?

What exactly changed in the roasting process to create a light roast versus a dark roast?

By the time his flat white was ready, Mastroeni had traced the drink in his hand all the way back to the Peruvian soil where the beans were grown- the long process that turns raw ingredients into something richer.

That curiosity- the instinct to lean closer, ask questions, and understand how things work- has defined his entire life.

Even when people told him it wouldn't.

The aptitude test

As a middle-school student, Mastroeni took a standardized aptitude test designed to help students understand what careers might suit them.

"It came back that I'd be a good manual laborer," Mastroeni said.

During a follow-up meeting, the teacher explained the results.

Careers outdoors. Working with his hands.

Then she asked him what he wanted to do.

"I said I want to be a professional soccer player."

Her response was meant to be practical.

"Pablo, less than one percent of the population in the world gets to do professional sports."

Mastroeni didn't hear discouragement.

He heard a challenge.

"Why not me?" he remembers thinking.

That moment became a theme that repeated itself throughout his career.

Opposing fans.

College coaches.

Professional doubters.

"There's always been people that have said 'you're dreaming too big,'" he said. "'There's just not enough space for you in this world to achieve those dreams.'"

Instead of shrinking from it, Mastroeni leaned into it.

Apple TV MLS commentator Keith Costigan has interviewed coaches all over the world, but when Mastroeni's name comes up you can hear the smile in his voice.

"Some see the glass half empty. Some see it half full. Pablo sees the glass completely full."

Ironically, Pablo says now, the aptitude test might not have been entirely wrong.

"Soccer is a kind of manual labor," he said. "You carry your own water. You pack your own lunch. You show up every day whether it's a good day or bad day."

He pauses, then grins.

"And you get to work outside."

The summer in Argentina

Another defining moment came during high school, when Mastroeni traveled to Argentina to train with Ferro Carril Oeste.

The club was holding massive open tryouts for its academy program.

"They would send buses to the most remote villages around Buenos Aires and bring the poor kids into camp," he said.

One afternoon before training, Mastroeni sat in a crowded room as dozens of players prepared to go out on the field.

What he saw stopped him.

"There were a couple guys with flip flops that they tied (to their feet) with laces so the flip flops would stay on their feet."

They didn't even own cleats.

"It was such an impressionable moment for me," he said.

Mastroeni had grown up in Arizona. He suddenly realized how different his circumstances had been.

"I realized how great I had it."

After the session ended, he asked his father if they could help.

"We went out and bought ten pairs of cleats for some of the kids."

The image stayed with him.

"You don't realize how good you have it until you go to places that don't have as much as you do."

It also revealed something about the global game.

"They're willing to play barefoot to get to where they want to go."

Players who overcome those kinds of obstacles early in life develop something powerful.

"When you overcome those hurdles and you make it," he said, "there is nothing in the world that can stop you."

A family culture of helping

Helping those players wasn't unusual for him.

It was how he was raised.

"My parents would always stop at corners where people were holding signs saying they would work for food," he said.

Instead of ignoring them, they would ask a simple question.

"What do you want to eat?"

Sometimes it meant a grocery run for milk.

Sometimes it meant a fast-food stop for a burger.

"They had people that helped them along the way," Mastroeni said of his parents. "And they wanted to do the same."

Even in a competitive environment like a soccer academy, helping those players felt natural.

"It was bigger than soccer," he said. "It was life."

Learning to coach

Years later, after a decorated MLS career and 65 appearances for the U.S. national team including 2 World Cups, Mastroeni transitioned into coaching with the Colorado Rapids.

The move was far harder than he expected.

He had been the team captain.

Now he was the coach.

"The same person with the same voice, but now I was in a different position," he said.

Suddenly, every word carried a different weight.

"I didn't realize the authority my voice had."

He also discovered something else- he didn't actually know how to coach yet.

A colleague once sent him a massive coaching document meant to guide his preparation.

"It was like drinking out of a fire hose," Mastroeni said.

At first, he tried to absorb it all.

"I remember trying to take everything from that document and bring it to the players," he said. "And you could just see it in their faces."

The message wasn't landing.

"They were looking at me like, 'What are you talking about?'"

The realization was sobering.

"I thought, man. ... I don't even understand what I'm saying."

Advice from iconic American coach Bruce Arena simplified everything.

"If you can't explain it to a six-year-old," Arena told his former player, "you don't know what you're talking about."

For Mastroeni, the lesson stuck.

Coaching wasn't about sounding sophisticated.

It was about clarity.

Finding his identity

Over time, the biggest lesson wasn't tactical.

It was personal.

Early in his coaching career, Mastroeni tried to emulate other managers.

"Early on I felt like I had to be like other coaches," he said.

Eventually he realized authenticity mattered more.

"I've grown to feel comfortable being who I am."

That authenticity now shapes the culture inside Real Salt Lake.

Players are expected to compete relentlessly.

Mistakes are tolerated.

Lack of effort is not.

What players see

Having played professionally across Europe and appeared in Champions League qualifying, Victor Olatunji has experience at some of the game's highest levels. One thing about Mastroeni stands out to him.

"He wants you to understand, not just to say, 'Hey, do this.' Pablo wants you to understand."

"This is the best part that I like about him. He's a good communicator. I like that."

Veteran defender DeAndre Yedlin has played for coaches across the world, including the 2014 and 2022 USMNT World Cup teams and in the Premier League with Newcastle United.

Asked where Mastroeni ranks among them, he didn't hesitate.

"I mean, he's top," Yedlin said.

"I think what makes Pablo so great is how personable he is. One thing that I always respect in a coach is that they see the human side first rather than the player first."

That balance, Yedlin said, is rare.

"Pablo is one of the top at realizing that we're humans first and that there's other things going on besides football."

But the empathy comes with expectations.

When asked about the idea that Mastroeni never gets on his players, Yedlin laughed.

"I've heard the locker room afterwards," he said. "So no. If the effort isn't there, you can hear his voice from miles away."

Mistakes are expected.

Effort is not negotiable.

"That's the one thing he demands out of all of his players," Yedlin said.

"Effort is the one thing you can truly control."

Inside the club, that standard is visible to the people building the roster as well.

"From the perspective of motivating players, it's difficult for me to look around the league and see teams that week in and week out put the kind of effort in that ours does," said Jason Kreis.

"It's very rare that I would look at a performance and say the guys didn't look right from a commitment perspective."

The airport

Leadership reveals itself in strange places.

Sometimes on the training ground. Sometimes on the touchline.

Sometimes it appears in the quiet moments between matches — like a delayed flight out of Vancouver, when a frustrated locker room instinctively turns toward its manager to see how he'll react.

For Mastroeni, those moments are where his philosophy becomes most visible. The season opener against the Whitecaps had been frustrating.

The loss felt undeserved.

But Mastroeni doesn't wallow.

As soon as the postmatch press conference ended, players and staff boarded buses for the 30-minute drive to the airport. Security. Customs. Immigration. Then the gate.

Almost immediately came the announcement: mechanical issue. Delay.

Moments later came the follow-up. The problem couldn't be fixed that night. The team would have to return to the hotel.

Groans rippled through the group.

Mastroeni just shook his head, flashed his lopsided grin, and pulled his jacket back on.

"We'll get home eventually, man."

The mood in the hotel lobby was somewhere between resignation and exhaustion as players collected room keys and tried to locate their kit bags again.

If anyone was happy about the news, it was the owner of the Mr. Shawarma food truck parked across the side street from the hotel.

Sunday morning, bright and early, it was back on the buses.

Back to the airport.

Back through security.

Back through customs and immigration.

The officer at the desk was eager to talk about the Whitecaps to anyone wearing RSL gear. When asked whether she followed hockey, however, she became taciturn. The United States had beaten Canada for Olympic gold earlier that morning.

Once through customs, the team was told there was another issue. Instead of heading to the gate, everyone was instructed to simply find space anywhere in the terminal.

Cards and poker chips appeared almost instantly, and a group of players commandeered a table at one of the concourse coffee shops. Others called family or found televisions to watch basketball.

Mastroeni pulled out his laptop. The match was over. The work wasn't.

Within minutes his coaching staff had gathered around him, leaning in as he began reviewing the match- pointing, discussing, evaluating what had worked and what needed improvement.

As the delays stretched on, one pattern became impossible to miss.

Whenever an announcement came over our phones — another delay, a gate change, a boarding update — the people closest to Mastroeni instinctively turned to gauge his reaction.

When the final boarding announcement finally came, a member of the front office started an ironic round of applause.

Mastroeni just smiled and stood up, stretching his back.

"I told you we'd get to go home."

The identity taking shape

The early results hint at something sustainable and real.

Real Salt Lake opened the season with a narrow road loss in Vancouver before earning statement wins over Seattle and Atlanta.

Through those matches, the outlines of Mastroeni's team are clear:

Disciplined.

Resilient.

Relentlessly competitive.

"Sport first and foremost is about competing," Mastroeni said.

"You play the game to win."

Everything else — tactics, systems, analysis — serves that purpose.

"All the other things are necessary pieces to help you achieve those things, but without the competitive mindset, we'll just be drawing dead."

Trusting the young

One of the most visible elements of Mastroeni's approach has been his willingness to trust young players.

Inside the club, the philosophy has a name: Winning together through development.

Kreis says Mastroeni himself helped shape the phrase, insisting that the word "together" captured the culture the club wanted to build.

"Not all coaches believe that playing young players and developing players is an important piece," Kreis said.

"There are plenty of coaches out there who would say — I'm not doing that. I don't want to be playing young players. I don't want to have a focus on development. I just want to be focused on winning."

Instead, Kreis says, Mastroeni has embraced both missions.

"I think Pablo has done an amazing job of continuing to walk the walk that he started when he talked the talk."

Academy products who've cut their teeth with the Monarchs have stepped into key roles early this season.

For Mastroeni, those moments carry personal meaning.

He remembers how suddenly opportunity arrived during his own national team career.

"When things happen quickly and younger players don't have time to think, it actually helps them," he said.

"They're just playing."

His job, he believes, is to create an environment where mistakes don't destroy confidence.

"The only way to gain experience is to make mistakes."

The coffee bean

Which brings the story back to that coffee shop in Minneapolis.

The barista probably expected a quick order and a polite nod.

Instead, she found herself explaining the entire life cycle of a coffee bean — from planting to roasting to the delicate timing that determines whether the final result becomes a light roast or a dark roast.

Mastroeni listened carefully.

Asked questions.

Connected the details.

For Pablo, coaching works the same way.

Observe closely.

Ask questions.

Understand the process.

And slowly turn raw ingredients into something greater.

If Real Salt Lake's early-season form is any indication, Pablo Mastroeni may be brewing something special in Salt Lake.

Related topics