Wasatch Soccer Sentinel
Ah, another beautiful Monday morning, and here we are, celebrating a Real Salt Lake win. I hope you're all enjoy Daylight Saving Time — I know I'm not.
What do we say about Real Salt Lake this morning? Perhaps we can talk about how that first half against Atlanta United was genuinely very good. Perhaps we can talk about how Atlanta has now lost three consecutive matches — a just result, given their having stolen the golden spike from Utah, where it belongs. (I don't mean that they literally stole the spike. It's idea theft, which is almost as bad. Or maybe it's worse. Regardless, it's not actionable.)
We could talk about how good Morgan Guilavogui has looked in just 99 minutes of play, with two assists to his name already. Or we could talk about how Aiden Hezarkhani has scored two goals in three matches. Those are both good things. Or we could talk about how Zavier Gozo has a goal and an assist to his name and looks very much like the real deal. Or even Sergi Solans, who looks more than capable given he was picked 30th in the MLS Draft. (I know there's talk about how he's from Girona's academy, but really, he's a college product by now, right? He was drafted for the 2025 season and actually went to UCLA, where he scored a ton of goals.)
All of those are good things, but it feels — I don't know — a little mundane to talk about goalscoring. Instead, I'd actually like to talk about — you guessed it! — midfield passing. I'll highlight something Matt Doyle wrote about Real Salt Lake yesterday:
The next question RSL have to answer: Can they actually control the game through midfield, either with or without the ball? So far it's a "no" but these things often take time, especially with a new formation and system, as well as a bunch of new personnel.
I guess I'm mostly curious if we can vet this out statistically and analytically. I've beenlooking at charts today, mostly from American Soccer Analysis's Viz Hub, and honestly, I don't think I have enough data available to me to make a real assessment. RSL is doing well in several passing-related metrics, as made evident in ASA's xPass tables. One thing I think we can say somewhat definitively is that RSL is one of the more vertically focused teams in the league from a passing perspective, and we've seen that play out several times now.
We can see that play out in the goals RSL's scored this season.
ATL 1 - 3 RSL — Gozo cuts in from the right:
ATL 0 - 1 RSL — Guilavogui makes a brilliant deep pass, Solans meets it with a neat run:
RSL 2 - 0 SEA — Quinton feeds Gozo from deep, Piol makes a smart run
All that doesn't really touch on the opportunities RSL hasn't put away, but these are three of RSL's five goals on the season. Another came from smart midfield play from Luca Moisa and a brilliant cross from Juanma Sanabria (and an extremely vertical dribbling run from Gozo), and the other came off a brilliant flick from Sergi Solans.
I guess the other thing that surprises me about these goals is just how well RSL has done to spring an attack from deep and how little pressure has been applied in each of these. Guilavogui holds off the opposition well on his Solans assist, but really, they absolutely should have done better. I'm not sad they didn't.
Over the next few weeks, I'm hoping we all have a better sense of what RSL's strengths and weaknesses are. Right now, it can feel like we're swimming in strengths, but with limited opposition we've faced, our exposure to potential issues is also limited. Right now, it appears our biggest strengths all stem from our verticality — look at the Philip Quinton passes from extremely deep positions. They're good passes certainly, but he's unchallenged. It's hard to imagine there's no adapting to those moments from opposing teams. Of course, this is MLS, and you can never count on teams doing things in a way that makes any sense.
Alright — that's enough for today. Let's round this out.
This week in Real Salt Lake
- RSL vs. Austin on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. MDT: Real Salt Lake will be spending Pi Day at home. It seems a reasonably good place to see a match. They've got a perfect record of a draw, a win, and a loss. (That's perfect, right? Seeing every possible variation?) (Edit: An earlier version of this indicated RSL was on the road. They're not. Nice.)
- KC Current vs. Utah Royals on Saturday, 1 p.m. MDT: The season opener!
- Real Monarchs vs. LAFC 2 on Sunday, 2:30 p.m. MDT
