Wasatch Soccer Sentinel

Real Salt Lake has had two preseason games streamed — a minor miracle, and one for which I’m grateful — giving us a look at the team’s shape and roster structure that we’ve not been afforded in recent years. While not against MLS opposition, matches against Danish side Randers FC (of Yura Movsisyan fame, I guess?) and Brøndby IF (of Gavin Beaver fame) peeled back the curtain just a bit.

How will Real Salt Lake’s new formation work?

Early evidence has RSL playing (roughly hewn) a 3-4-1-2 (or a 3-2-3-2, if you’d rather describe it that way), with two deep midfielders, two wing backs, two forwards, and one Diego Luna in a largely free role. What I’m left wondering is how the ball will progress from the two deep midfielders (in the most recent game, that role was played by Pablo Ruiz and Noel Caliskan) to the likes of Luna.

If Luna is required to come deep frequently to retrieve the ball, the problem repeats itself, and Luna then has to figure out how to progress it to a forward. There are large gaps left in the middle of the park, and I don’t see a solution forthcoming, given that’s largely the same thing we saw from RSL last year, too. Against Brondby, Ruiz and Caliskan were particularly close together and largely side-by-side throughout; there was a certain depth that would have changed the dynamic.