Real Salt Lake Falls For First Time At Home In 2022

SALT LAKE CITY – Real Salt Lake fell to FC Dallas to a score of 1-0 that snapped an 11-game home unbeaten streak at Rio Tinto Stadium.

“There was a 10-minute patch in the first half that we were careless with the ball,” Manager Pablo Mastroeni said when asked what his message to the team was following the loss. “We put ourselves in some really uncomfortable transition moments and did not handle that well and we just didn’t adjust to the decisions that we were making,” he added.

Manager Pablo Mastroeni went with an unchanged lineup from the 3-0 demolishing of Sporting Kansas City a week ago. Still, he added Scott Caldwell to the bench after recently clearing the league’s health and safety protocol.

The opening five minutes were filled with mistakes and careless turnovers for both sides.

Real Salt Lake generated the first opportunity of the evening in the 8th minute when Maikel Chang found the forehead of Sergio Córdova but the shot was straight down the throat of FC Dallas goalkeeper Maarten Paes.

Minutes later, FC Dallas found the opening goal of the contest when Justin Meram uncharacteristically turned the ball over in his own defensive third led to a rather simple one-touch finish from Jesus Ferreira.

Homegrown ➡️ Homegrown

Paxton Pomykal finds Jesús Ferreira for his 12th of the season. pic.twitter.com/pDcdHHbutg

— FC Dallas (@FCDallas) July 24, 2022

Wasteful In Front Of Goal

The remainder of the game was filled with good buildup play by Real Salt Lake with nothing to show for it. The ball was being fumbled, scuffed, miskicked, and poorly managed by the RSL attackers.

“We were sloppy, sloppy in the first half and they capitalized on it and we could never get it back,” Justen Glad said following the game.

In the 30th minute, RSL came as close as they would all evening when Chang linked up with Aaron Herrera who whipped a ball across the face of goal which Jefferson Savarino failed to convert with his head on the goal line. The ball bounced once before going over the crossbar for a corner, having last been touched by an FC Dallas defender.

🤯 EMA 🤯

📺 TXA21, https://t.co/GZoc7Nvbji, ESPN+
📻 @iHeartRadio, @talkradio1190, 1270AM pic.twitter.com/2f0owcRAv6

— FC Dallas (@FCDallas) July 24, 2022

In the 40th minute, Paes made another save on his goal line when Andrew Brody’s back-post header was saved inches inside the near post on the goal line.

Frustration continued to mount as the minutes went by, Real Salt Lake began taking pop shots from distance but was never able to test Paes who seemed to be seeing the ball very clearly regardless of what Real Salt Lake was trying to muster.

Tempers boiled over in the 85th minute when Jasper Löffelsend collided with an FC Dallas player and players from both teams were caught pushing and pulling kits.

Justin Meram came within inches of stealing a point in the 94th minute when his long-range effort sailed past the outstretched arms of Paes and past the right post.

By The Numbers

RSL ended with 23 shots to FC Dallas’ 7. However, only 5 of the 22 RSL shots were on target, FC Dallas ended with 2 shots on frame. Real Salt Lake dominated 70% of the possession, generated 7 corners and completed 306 more passes than their opposition.

Next Real Salt Lake Match

Real Salt Lake will travel to San Jose on July 30 with kickoff scheduled for 8 p.m.

The match will be available to stream for free via the KSL Sports and KSL 5 TV apps or on KSL Sports dot com.