Real Salt Lake's 2026 campaign starts with a significant slate of absences.
Real Salt Lake's 2026 season starts on Saturday — it's really snuck up on all of us! — and it's time to take a look at the match against Vancouver Whitecaps.
RSL's season-opener won't see the team at full-strength — or anything even approaching it. The club's report read as follows:
During an interview on ESPN 700, RSL coach Pablo Mastroeni indicated that Pablo Ruiz is also out. Ruiz did not appear on the absence report.
— Matt Montgomery
One thing I’m looking forward to, or dreading depending on the day, is the newly teased 3-4-2-1 formation RSL will trot out this year. Since the Cassar days, RSL has almost exclusively played in a 4-2-3-1 with varying tactical approaches, so a change to a back 3 is the biggest formational adjustment since RSL moved away from the 4-4-2 diamond of the Kreis days.
With the lack of personnel changes in the team early in the offseason, I was skeptical that this change would work since we had no real wing backs to cover the two wide midfield positions. Yedlin has played there for most of his career, but last season showed his age is catching up with him and he shouldn’t be asked to cover that much ground consistently. Katranis and Junqua could cover the left side, but to me Junqua never seemed like he's as comfortable in the attack. But then RSL signed Juan Manuel Sanabria from Atletico San Luis and it felt like everything fell into place for this formation to work. We start attack minded wingbacks on both sides, Sanabria and Katranis on the left, and Marczuk, Gozo, Yedlin, or anyone else willing to run the line on the right. That then gives Luna and new DP Morgan Guilavogui to play centrally under Olantuji. The double pivot central midfield runs the same as ever and the back three of Glad, Lukas Engel, and our mystery 3rd center back give a bit of support in the attack, and cover for counters.
I say mystery 3rd center back, but in all likelihood it will be Yedlin to start the season. Quinton, Kobi Henry, and new U-22 loanee Juan Jose Arias will likely battle it out to win that spot from Yedlin, and I’d bet that one of them wins that spot before the season’s over. I think Arias has the highest potential of the three, but his loan is only 6 months long, so he’ll need to prove himself pretty early on if he’s going to be worth the summer transfer fee.
Every time I think about this formation change though, a little ditty keeps coming to mind, accompanied by the image of a tall Scotsman in an oversized suit repeating the mantra: “same as it ever was.” Will RSL actually look different in this new formation? The past 2 years saw RSL pushing their left-back high as a pseudo-winger, while the right back stayed home, allowing the left winger to tuck in centrally and work as a playmaker under the center striker. To me that looks functionally like a 3-4-2-1 in the attack. I have a hard time seeing a different tactical result than what we’ve seen RSL do since 2024. This tactical approach worked really well at the beginning of 2024, but after Gomez was sold and other players got into slumps, RSL struggled to attack efficiently and defend consistently for the next year and a half.
That said, new additions give me that glimmer of hope RSL fans know so well. Sanabria is the biggest addition to the team since Chicho in my opinion, Engel seems more promising to me than Vera was on defense, and I’m praying that Guilavogui performs better than Diogo. Will this formation fix last year’s problems? We’ll see but I wouldn’t be shocked if nothing actually changes.
— Joseph Hutchison
Update: I forgot Luna's out. Whee!
Of course, these are my predictions, not the club's predictions. I've leaned toward 'questionable' being 'definitely out' for this one. We're surprisingly short-handed.
Additionally, despite several national publications indicating a 3-4-2-1 with two attacking wingers for RSL, what we saw in preseason had Diego Luna in an attacking midfield role with two center forwards. But we were only to see so much of preseason, and it's certainly possible that the team shifted their approach unseen. And of course, how the team plays defensively will be a different question altogether — will they drop into a bit of a back four, with Yedlin in a more traditional right back role rather than as a wide center back? Time will tell.
— Matt Montgomery
Notably, Apple TV and MLS have ended the need for an MLS-specific subscription; MLS is now available with a standard Apple TV subscription.
Wasatch Soccer Sentinel
