Real Salt Lake

Looking ahead to tonight's game in Austin.

RSL has inched within two points of the LA Galaxy in the race for the last playoff berth.

They're playing Austin, who's in next to last place.

However, it's on the road where RSL's won just twice all season.

But they did just win in Kansas City.

Are they turning over a new leaf? They got three games left.

2023 was just an abysmal year of Nick Cushing's stamp on this team, of just anemic offense, 35 goals in 34 MLS games.

There was a game in Real Salt Lake, against Real Salt Lake in Salt Lake City.

I think you've heard this a thousand times from me where I wanted to quit covering soccer.

It was a 0-0 draw.

This maybe this is more of a 2019 blue situation where you went from, you know, I think at one point, you know, around, you know, April or March or April, I think we were probably talking wooden spoon, you know, instead of, you know, an open cup title.

But like and, you know, speaking that, you know, speaking of cups and hardware, you You know, given that game and given, you know, we're coming off that 21 game unbeaten streak, we face planted against Minnesota, we grinded against Columbus, and then we face planted even harder against Real Salt Lake.

Even though it was an ugly win, Jake, does this show you that City can be a contender for the MLS Cup?

I mean, yeah, but...

visit crown coins.com sign up in seconds enter code crown and get a free lucky wheel bonus you may win up to 10 000 sweeps coins crown coins.com that's c-r-o-w-n coins.com no purchase needed code valid for new users only void were prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply crown

And that is going to be a topic of discussion as we've danced around this game long enough.

We do need to talk about Real Salt Lake.

And I think the theme here is going to be our depth or lack thereof.

We beat

RSL that

year.

We got bounced before the Conference Finals.

Does that ring bells? He had a good first

year.

I was right about RSL.

We had a great first year.

I think you would have put St. Louis in there, but, I mean, you got to put St. Louis in there.

You got to take away the – we did the Real Salt Lake.

You put St. Louis after they won the U.S. Open Cup.

You kind of take that out, you know what I mean? But when you look at teams, I look at Vancouver right now.

Then Ostrot gets a red card in the 43rd minute, and you're sitting there going, okay, can anything else go wrong for them today? So I think it's one of those games you just kind of push aside and you say, okay, they're still, I believe, in second or third place, but they're good.

They are good.

Even Real Salt Lake has turned a corner a little bit.

I think it's four straight games without a lineup change.

You had a, I think, I think you had a better week than Ron did.

Um, I mean, obviously Newcastle, uh, took a, took a two nil victory over crystal palace, but then city followed up a lackluster performance against Minnesota with a three nil shutout against real salt Lake.

And,

uh,

move on.

The typo match, I just want to shout out Tony Taktovich, former RSL defender, gets a clean sheet for London City Sailors and the assist and the 1-0 win.

I know his stint in MLS was very short, but yeah, it's a name that is very recognizable.

By the way, Kenta, you're a big CONCACAF guy.

The leaning against the post was always good, too.

You remember that one that turned into a meme? And then my favorite, like, out of the blue, Dax McCarty's goal against RSL.

So scored a goal, diving header, and just rips his shirt off.

And he's just sprinting around, has no idea, just flat, like, limbs, just all over the place, had no idea what to do.

So they are going to be a tough team.

They did lose to RSL this weekend, 3-0.

But they did get a red card and I assume they are hungover from winning the Open Cup.

Yeah, playing 120 minutes midweek at that competitive a level and then having an early red.