Real Salt Lake Remains on Road this Weekend at Philadelphia Union

April 26, 2024 – Major League Soccer (MLS)
Real Salt Lake News Release

HERRIMAN, Utah – Real Salt Lake (4-2-3, 15 pts., t-2nd West MLS) resumes its 2024 MLS regular season – the Club’s 20th and Major League Soccer 29th – this Saturday evening in suburban Philadelphia, at Subaru Park in Chester, Penn., with a 5:30p MT kickoff against MLS’ lone remaining unbeaten side (3-0-4, 13 pts, 4th East MLS). RSL enters Matchday 11 of the 2024 season unbeaten in its last five overall matches – last losing on March 9 to Colorado – and seeking a fifth consecutive road result, with Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni’s team posting a 2-1-2 (8 pts) record away this year, losing only the season kickoff at Miami on Feb. 24.

Last week’s 4-0 road win at Chicago – RSL’s largest since a 6-0 win away at Colorado in August, 2018 – saw RSL Captain / FW Chicho Arango earn MLS Player of the Matchday honors with the Club’s first-ever 2-goal/2-assist match in 624 all-time MLS reg. season contests. Arango – now Major League Soccer’s top goal contributor with eight goals and six assists on the season – continued his MVP-caliber campaign, although the defensive clean sheet by teenage GK Gavin Beavers and a makeshift backline was the Club’s second in as many games, despite a centerback injury epidemic.

Last Saturday in Chicago, it was 22-year-old Colombian winger Andrés Gómez providing what proved to the be the game-winning goal midway through the first half at historic Soldier Field. With Arango setting up left back Alex Katranis on an overlap, the former Greek youth international found Gómez behind the defense. RSL’s second-year Colombian winger cut back inside from the right to the left atop the 18, slamming home a near-post burner for the 1-0 lead.

Arango – who had recorded four of his previous six goals in consecutive weeks vs. St. Louis and at Minnesota in an eight-day span from March 30 – April 6, prior to being held scoreless at home by Columbus on April 13 – scored twice in the next 15 minutes. Arango deftly read a mistimed back pass by a Fire defender to move RSL’s lead to 2-0, then losing his marker on a corner kick shortly before halftime to head home a Bryan Oviedo offering. The three goals scored by RSL in the first half on the road at Chicago equaled the feat accomplished twice before in the Claret-and-Cobalt’s 309 all-time MLS road game history: May 2014 at Houston in a 5-2 win, and May 2023 at Colorado last year prior to an eventual 3-2 victory.

This Saturday’s kickoff at 5:30p MT…