SANDY, Utah (ABC4 Sports) – After earning the Western Conference’s fifth overall seed, Real Salt Lake (14-12-8, 50 pts.) kicks off the MLS Cup Playoffs next Sunday, October 29 at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston against the fourth-seeded Dynamo, with a 4:00p MT kickoff.
The second leg of the Round One “Best of Three” series will kick off at America First Field in Sandy on Monday, November 6 at 7:00p MT.
Should the series between two of this year’s Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Semifinalists advance to a third game, it would be played on Saturday, November 11 at 2:00p MT in Houston.
Each game will have a winner with the first team to reach two victories moving on to the second round. If the game ends in a tie, it will go straight to penalty kicks to decide the winner with no overtime period.
RSL is 0-2-1 against Houston this season across all competitions. The teams played to a scoreless draw in Houston in May. The Dynamo then beat RSL in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals at home in July, 3-1, and followed that up with a 3-0 shutout victory at America First Field three days later.
Real Salt Lake actually has a better record on the road this year at 8-5-4, while going 6-7-4 at home.
Real Salt Lake finished the 2023 MLS Regular Season – its 19th campaign in MLS – with a 1-0 win at Rocky Mountain Cup rival Colorado, as 20-year-old U.S. Olympic starlet Diego Luna slammed home the game’s lone goal in the 76th minute, the second consecutive week Luna scored in the final 15 minutes to secure road points for RSL.
For a third consecutive season under the guidance of Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni, RSL advances to the postseason yet again. RSL is playoff-bound for the fifth time in six seasons – missing only the Covid-affected 2020 campaign – and for the sixth time in the last nine seasons (2015 / 2017).
