Level Set 12, Real Salt Lake: After the Success Story

How it started. Going was MLS Cup 2009!

What follows is a brief history of Real Salt Lake, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

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I’m here to tell the kids that joining MLS as an expansion team today is nothing like what it was in the mid-2000s. Back then, the incoming front office couldn’t sign even one designated player – the Designated/aka “Beckham Rule” wasn’t codified until 2007 – which left any incoming team picking through the same crappy, exhausted buffet, as every other team in the league, aka, the Superdraft and whatever scraps they could buy from overseas. That’s the league Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake stepped into in 2005 and, golly, does “stepped into” get right to it. To their (very temporary) credit, Chivas USA turned over a competitive roster within one season – notably, by signing some soon-to-be famous young Americans - but it took RSL three-plus seasons to climb that mini-Everest. They built their first, best teams around rightful MLS legends like Kyle Beckerman, Javier Morales, and long-time anchor/boogeyman/legend, Nick Rimando, but they also did some next-level work in terms of finding great complimentary players like Fabian Espindola and, to turn the backline into a wall, Jamison Olave and Nat Borchers. When it all finally came together with a couple players who understood their roles and played them well – e.g., Ned Grabavoy and Will Johnson as shuttlers in a midfield-four diamond – they became one of MLS 2.0’s most consistent – and dangerous – teams. RSL didn’t just make the 2008 playoffs, they pushed to the semifinals. Just one season later, they lifted MLS Cup 2009 by holding off a pre-peak Los Angeles Galaxy team through regulation and extra-time and giving them one of the most famous Rimando-ings in MLS history. Over the next several season, they made Rio Tinto Stadium into a fortress with a 29-home-game unbeaten streak that started in June 6, 2009 (their road form, on the other hand…), but even that triumphal time included one of the most sharply painful moments in MLS history. RSL reached the final of the 2010-2011 CONCACAF Champions’ League tournament and, after drawing Liga MX’s Monterrey 2-2 in Mexico, all they needed to become the first MLS team to hoist the revamped regional club championship trophy was a keep Monterrey off the board in the fortress they’d built. All that promise came undone when some guy named Humberto Andres Suavo Pontivo scored at the 45th minute for Monterrey and, even with their (then-)best all-time roster and flashy, yet strapping forward Alvaro Saborio on board, RSL couldn’t pull back that one goal. RSL survived the blow and, with the balance of the core still intact, they reached the semifinals again in 2011 and MLS Cup again in 2013. They ultimately lost that game, but the success head coach Jason Kreis enjoyed between 2008-2013 made him not just a hot commodity, but the subject (or is it an object?) of a campaign that tried to whisper him to the U.S. Men’s National Team hot seat. He ditched them when New York City FC showed a little leg (before they even had horses, it bears noting), but the familiar pattern set in: player by player and season by season, the members of that team either aged out or moved on. RSL never fully slipped all the way under the waves – they’ve made the last eight in the playoffs four times since 2013, including a trip to the Western Conference final in 2021 - but they have struggled with getting enough quality on the same roster in the same season to take them that vital one step further.

Getting Reacquainted with Real Salt Lake, the Inspiring Underdogs of MLS 2.0

I can see you don't care....

Thumbnail History
I’m here to tell the kids that joining MLS as an expansion team today is nothing like what it was in the mid-2000s. Back then, the incoming front office couldn’t sign even one designated player – the Designated/aka “Beckham Rule” wasn’t codified until 2007 – which left any incoming team picking through the same crappy, then exhausted buffet, as every other team in the league. That’s the MLS Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake stepped into in 2005 and, golly, does “stepped into” get right to it. To their (very temporary) credit, Chivas USA turned over a competitive roster within one season – notably, by signing some soon-to-be famous young Americans - but it took RSL four seasons to climb that mini-Everest. They built their first, best teams around rightful MLS legends like Kyle Beckerman, (now Miami assistant coach) Javier Morales, and long-time anchor/dream-killer, Nick Rimando, but they also did some next-level work in terms of finding great complimentary players like Fabian Espindola and, to turn the backline into a wall, Jamison Olave and Nat Borchers. When it all finally came together with a couple players who understood their roles and played them well – e.g., Ned Grabavoy and Will Johnson as shuttlers in a midfield-four diamond – they became one of MLS 2.0’s most consistent – and dangerous – teams. RSL didn’t just make the 2008 playoffs, they pushed to the semifinals. Just one season later, they raised MLS Cup 2009 by holding them off in regulation and through extra-time, until they dealt a pre-peak Los Angeles Galaxy team one of the most famous Rimando-ings in MLS history. All that success turned head coach Jason Kreis into not just a hot commodity, but the subject (or is it an object?) of a campaign that tried to whisper him to the U.S. Men’s National Team hot-seat for a season or two. That team turned Rio Tinto Stadium into a fortress with a 29-home-game unbeaten streak that started in June 6, 2009 (their road form, on the other hand…), but even that triumphal time included one of the most sharply painful moments in MLS history. RSL reached the final of the 2010-2011 CONCACAF Champions’ League tournament and, after drawing Liga MX’s Monterrey 2-2 in Mexico, all they needed to become the first MLS team to hoist the revamped regional club championship trophy was a keep Monterrey off the board in the fortress they’d built. All that promise came undone when some guy named Humberto Andres Suavo Pontivo scored at the 45th minute for Monterrey and, even with their (then-)best all-time roster and flashy forward Alvaro Saborio on board, RSL couldn’t pull back that one goal. RSL survived the blow and, with the balance of the core still intact, they reached the semifinals again in 2011 and MLS Cup again in 2013. They ultimately lost that game, but the success head coach Jason Kreis enjoyed between 2008-2013 made him not just a hot commodity, but the subject (or is it an object?) of a campaign that tried to whisper him to the U.S. Men’s National Team hot seat. Smal wonder he checked out after that season to take the reins at New York City FC (before they even had horses, it bears noting), but player by player and season by season, the members of that team either aged out or moved on. As you’ll see below, RSL never fully slipped all the way under the waves – they’ve made the last eight in the playoffs four times since 2013, including a trip to the playoffs in 2021 - but they have struggled with getting enough quality on the same roster in the same season to take them that vital one step further. They have improved at finding the odd great/promising young player (e.g., Diego Luna), including on the DP market player (e.g., Cristian Arango), and they have a respectable youth system (see Justen Glad, Adrian Brody(?)), but they remain a small-ish market team in a league where that gets harder every season.

Getting Reacquainted with FC Dallas, MLS's Consummate B (or B-) Students

How's your Italian, young man?

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

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FC Dallas, fka, the Dallas Burn undermine the entire “Joy Point” concept (see end of post for methodology*) because they rank seventh in MLS history more for consistency than what any fan would recognize as joy. Choosing their best season required no more thought than choosing between the two seasons they actually won a trophy. Dallas rose to these lofty heights the same way Red Bull New York did – i.e., by being in the league for as long as they have and consistently making the playoffs. Unlike the Red Bulls, I don’t believe anyone outside their most committed fans (meant, here, as both committed and “committed”) have ever uttered the words, “I think this is Dallas’ year. They did reach MLS Cup once, in 2010, but they lost to…the Colorado Rapids. (When people tell you that MLS is a weird league, believe them.) And yet, and to their very real credit, Dallas have missed the playoffs just seven times in 28 seasons (including one season they got tagged by the Wooden Spoon (2003)) and they finished in the top half of the table in (literally) half the time. Not a bad run, all in all, but not a great one, and not what any reasonable person would describe as “joy.” If one had to grade the Dallas franchise what could you give them but a B, or maybe even a B-. On the plus side, they do have that dynamite academy, aka, America’s answer to Ajax in the Eredivisie…makes you wonder how high they could rise if they kept some of those promising players two days after their 20th birthday. Or thereabouts.

Best Season(s)

The 2016 season, easily, and with nod to the prior season as a sign of things to come. I had to check back to both rosters to remember who suited up for them in both years (2015 and 2016) and, small coincidence, those same players are well-represented (if not over-represented and via a cheat) in the 10 Players to know section below. Those sections speak to another general truth about FC Dallas: it’s less that they never make ambitious signings than that they often miss the mark when they do, sometimes wildly. At any rate, Dallas won both the Supporters’ Shield and the U.S. Open Cup in 2016, which means their fans felt actual joy once – which I suppose beats the usual experience of salivating over the latest academy kid that they’ll say goodbye to right around the time they remember his name...

An MLS History Project, 1999: Late Bloomers & Shrinking Margins

The theme of tonight's TED Talk...

“This was the last season which used the 35 yard line shootout rule to resolve tied games, and that of the countdown timer, with MLS Cup 1999 adopting the IFAB-standard running clock thereafter.”

Major League Soccer’s unsavory gimmicks lasted somwhere around four years. I can't name a decisive date because the league’s commissioner only decided ditch the a game-clock that counted down instead of up when MLS Cup 1999 rolled around, thereby returning to the normal…profoundly well-established tradition of the referee keeping time on the field…and having people explain to that same referee at volume, and in extraordinarily personal terms, that he is an asshole who does not know how to keep fucking time. See? Tradition.

Then and future commissioner Don Garber made that call. For what it’s worth, I think that small, obvious decision bought “The Soccer Don” a well of sympathy that he has yet to burn through, if with the older generation. I don’t like him a lot, but he seems to get the big things…look, a lifetime of voting for Democrats prepares you for certain things.

As for the season, tell me if you’ve heard this one before: DC United reached and won an MLS Cup final. Guess who they played? Yep, the Los Angeles Galaxy. Guess where they played? You’re not gonna believe this, but…Foxborough, MA, yes, the same venue where DC snuffed out the Galaxy (whoa.) in the inaugural MLS Cup just four years earlier. I’d forgotten this, but Christina Aguilera performed for the MLS Cup 1999 halftime. I dug around a bit to see if I could find the video (nope!), but I did find a NY Times blog post from 2007 that included this little snippet:

“Christina Aguilera, who at that time was still more Mickey Mouse Club than ‘dirrty’ pop-diva, performed a song from her debut album that went platinum 10 times over and won her the Best New Artist Grammy in 2000. Meanwhile, M.L.S. average attendance dropped slightly the next season.”

The headline to that piece – which was about Jimmy Eat World playing the 2007 MLS Cup halftime - was “Pop Stars Riding M.L.S. Coat-Tails.” Yeah, no. Moving on…

Orlando City SC 2-1 Los Angeles Galaxy: Stage Fright?

Don't know what it is either. Just found it under "stage fright."

It’s not even summer and it already sucks to play in Orlando. As the broadcast booth reminded viewers incessantly during the game, Orlando has won every home game in their new stadium; at four games, that’s more than any other team in Major League Soccer history. That’s neat and impressive, certainly, but it’s a stretch to call Orlando a well-oiled machine.

Consider Orlando’s opening goal: Will Johnson can and will make that aggressive run (especially if one told him he could not), but I’d bet he doesn’t score that goal more than once in every 20 attempts. it was a wild shot, basically, one that took a lucky strike to go where it did. Next, consider Orlando’s most dangerous player on the day, Carlos Rivas. The more I watched Rivas – a fast player, certainly, but one whose speed papers over his technical deficiencies – the more he felt like a human embodiment of Orlando as a team; he, like them, is capable, but he’s not even sort of elegant. All in all, Orlando has a plan to beat opponents, but it feels closer to accurate to describe said plan as “concocted,” as opposed to “constructed.”

The Los Angeles Galaxy was the team they beat (2-1…am I just getting to that?), but it was close and came late, which just means it followed a familiar script for this weekend (lots o’ late goals). Cyle Larin bagged the winner around the 90th minute by overpowering Jermaine Jones in the area – and that also felt fitting. Jones spent too much of this game distracted by bullshit to the point of near-disengagement, so one final switch off wrapped things up nicely (or, in fairness, maybe Larin’s just too damn big for Jones). Jones, along with the rest of LA took far too long to get started; they might have even owed their late little roll to a couple personnel and formation changes by Orlando’s Jason Kreis (lookin’ at Luis Gil for Cristian Higuita, in particular). Whatever caused it, a handful of players bestirred themselves to give Romain Alessandrini – who has been LA’s only reliable danger-man – some goddamn help out there. Yes, even Giovani dos Santos.

If that sounds hard on the latter, blame anyone who talked up how LA would become dos Santos’ team in 2017. On the evidence (and with one big exception), he doesn’t seem to want it. If there’s a strange sub-plot in this whole thing, it’s the fact that LA looked better, more polished on those occasions when they did things well. Orlando, for their part, scored just one more goal and that’s what matters.