- RSL hosts San Diego FC in a clash of contrasting playing styles.
- RSL is on a five-game unbeaten run while San Diego struggles with discipline.
- RSL's young players and team chemistry are key to their recent success.
SANDY — Real Salt Lake did not just beat Sporting Kansas City, they overwhelmed them.
RSL created chance after chance, hit the woodwork multiple times, pressed high, won the ball in dangerous spots, and looked every bit like a team beginning to understand not just how to create chaos, but how to control it.
That may be the next step for this group.
On Saturday night, RSL returns to America First Field to host San Diego FC in a matchup between two teams who want to play with the ball, trust young players, and push games into uncomfortable places.
It is fun watching two teams that both want the ball. It is even more interesting seeing which one can keep control of it when the game starts to break.
A break in the schedule before a busy stretch
RSL enters the match on a five-game unbeaten run and is a perfect 3-0-0 at home this season.
The club was originally scheduled to travel to Seattle last weekend, but the match was postponed to September after scheduling complications around Seattle's CONCACAF Champions Cup run and the installation of FIFA grass at Lumen Field ahead of this summer's World Cup.
Seattle had been forced to move an earlier CONCACAF match to Spokane, but CONCACAF later required the Sounders to return to Lumen for the next round. FIFA then blocked additional wear and tear on the temporary grass surface so close to the World Cup, forcing RSL's road match to be moved.
As a result, RSL enters Saturday rested after nearly two weeks between matches, but a congested stretch now follows.
RSL stayed sharp during the break with an intrasquad scrimmage last Friday, though it came with a cost. Jesus Barea suffered an LCL injury during the scrimmage.
The club has since learned the injury will not require surgery, but Barea is expected to miss time in the near term.
After hosting San Diego on Saturday, RSL will welcome Inter Miami Wednesday night before traveling to face the LA Galaxy next Sunday.
The upcoming schedule will test RSL's depth.
Kobi Henry, DeAndre Yedlin, and Zach Booth are all fully back in training, joined by winter signing Juan Arias, who arrived injured and has yet to debut.
Juan "JuanMa" Sanabria is also close to returning after having to get his work visa re-approved following international duty. Once he receives his passport, he is expected to rejoin the team.
San Diego's discipline problem
San Diego, meanwhile, has not won in five matches, has dropped its last two, and has now seen a player sent off in four consecutive matches.
The streak began when defender Chris McVey was shown a second yellow in RSL's 2-2 draw in San Diego last month. McVey was sent off again in San Diego's most recent loss to Minnesota and will miss Saturday's return fixture.
For Pablo Mastroeni, however, the focus is less on San Diego's disciplinary problems and more on the opportunities that can emerge against a team so committed to its identity.
"Going to San Diego, a big part of our plan was how do we defend against a team that really prides itself on being an attacking team and creating a lot of opportunities in those attacking moments and then breaking teams down," Mastroeni said.
"Their players getting red cards is part of the game. But when you're constantly threatening their back line, you're going to ask a lot of questions of their center backs. Playing in a back four, they're going to have to shift from sideline to sideline. If we can have penetrating runs that are asking a lot of questions, one, they'll find themselves in challenges they probably won't want to make, and also there will be space behind their back line to exploit."
San Diego remains committed to playing out of the back and possessing the ball, even through a difficult run of results. The expansion side outpossessed Minnesota 67-33 in its most recent loss and continued trying to build through pressure, despite being reduced to 10 men, once again.
That style creates danger.
Anders Dreyer has already proven that. The Danish attacker punished an RSL mistake for San Diego's second goal in the 2-2 draw between the teams last month and has been one of the league's most dangerous players to start the season.
Marcus Ingvartsen, Onni Valakari, and Dreyer have combined for 10 goals already this year, and San Diego has enough attacking quality to punish any lapse in concentration.
"We're expecting a team that's going to be very dogmatic in the way they want to play," Mastroeni said. "The onus is on us to thwart that, but then come up with a solution as to how we're going to score goals."
The tension between identity and execution is what makes this matchup so interesting.
Two young teams, different results
Both teams rank among the top three in MLS in average starters under the age of 23. Both teams want to attack. Both teams want to control the ball as opposed to sitting deep and trying to hit on the counter. But right now, RSL is turning those ideas into wins, even as injuries and visa issues have forced the coaching staff to juggle lineups.
Stijn Spierings, the veteran midfielder who joined RSL this past offseason, has quickly been impressed by the group around him.
"I'm a bit surprised by the quality of the young guys especially," Spierings said. "I think they're very mature already for their age and I think a lot of those guys have a great future ahead of them."
Winning changes everything
RSL's belief is clearly growing.
"Winning is a secret sauce," Mastroeni said. "It allows you to communicate messages clearly. It allows you to have a very competitive training environment.
"I couldn't be more proud of the group that we have, the culture that we've created here. It's been a real joy. The one thing I don't have to ask is for them to give 100 percent every day. These guys are doing it because they feel it, and they also feel that we have something special brewing with this group."
That feeling extends beyond the field.
"We have an amazing changing room and we are friends," team captain Rafael "Rafa" Cabral said. "That's the point. We are friends.
"When we are friends outside the field and we can put this on the field as well, that's our difference."
The chemistry has shown on the pitch.
Young players like Zavier Gozo, Aiden Hezarkhani, Luca Moisa, Sergi Solans, and Griffin Dillon have all stepped into significant roles early in the season, supported by veterans like Cabral, who arrived before the 2025 season and played every minute of every league match last year, and Justen Glad, who came through the RSL Academy, signed a Homegrown deal, and has been with the first team since making his debut in 2015.
Few players understand the path these young players are trying to walk better than Glad.
"I think we did a good job this year of bringing in some really good pillars that create a safe space for these young players to be who they are and not try to fit into the mold," Mastroeni said. "If your whole team is young, then it's essentially the blind chasing the blind in difficult moments. There's no one to look up to and go, 'Just give me the ball. I'll control it.'"
Diego Luna and the next step
That control is exactly what RSL showed against Sporting Kansas City.
Diego Luna set the tone just four minutes into the match, arriving onto Noel Caliskan's through ball and firing home from distance for the opener in his first start since returning from injury.
Luna will continue to be one of the centerpieces of this team as he pushes to strengthen his case for a place with the United States at this summer's World Cup.
There is another layer to this matchup as well. San Diego head coach Mikey Varas coached Luna with the U.S. U-20 national team during the 2023 U-20 World Cup, the tournament many still view as Luna's coming-out party on the international stage.
"If you go back to the beginning of the season, I think there was a lot of chaos and it wasn't a lot of us controlling it," Mastroeni said. "The hardest thing to do is manage games and manage moments. If the game is really transitional and we're not reaping the benefits of it, we want the game to be a bit more controlled.
"The Kansas City game was a good example of that. We want to turn those opportunities into goals. But if not, we want to make sure that if the game is chaotic, it's because we're down and we want the game to be chaotic, not because we're winning and we want the game to be chaotic."
Another test awaits
Saturday presents another test.
San Diego will want the ball. It will push numbers forward and it will trust its young players.
RSL wants to do all of those same things.
The difference right now is that RSL is learning how to do them without losing control.
What to watch
- RSL's press against San Diego's build-out
- Whether San Diego can avoid another costly red card
- How RSL manages transition moments after turnovers
- Whether the home atmosphere continues to drive results
Real Salt Lake wants to dictate matches. San Diego wants to do the same. Right now, the difference is that RSL is learning how to do it without losing control. If RSL controls the chaos again on Saturday, it will be one more sign that this fast start is becoming something more substantial.
