2020 Season Preview: Real Salt Lake
/Point-above-replacement values are explained here. Non-penalty expected goals + expected assists are explained here, and you can see all players’ xG+xA in our interactive expected goals tables. Touch percent is the percentage of total team touches by that player while he is on the field, which can be found in our interactive expected passing tables.
By Kevin Minkus (@kevinminkus)
Real Salt Lake are not a team that’s going to spend big to bring in foreign talent, like a lot of Western Conference teams did this winter. According to Transfermarkt, RSL’s roster has the lowest total market value of any team in MLS. Under former manager Mike Petke, RSL were decent, though, in spite of their talent deficit. Last season they finished third, won their first round playoff matchup, and were that not far off from beating the eventual MLS Cup winning Seattle Sounders in the Conference Semifinal.
Because they did not do much to strengthen the squad in terms of talent, RSL’s most important offseason move was naming Freddy Juarez the team’s fifth head coach, after he guided the team from August on as the interim. Their ability to improve in 2020 will hinge on Juarez’s ability to coach up the roster. His two biggest opportunities are two things that were consistent roadblocks for the team under Petke - RSL’s attacking mechanics and creativity, and their youth development. If Juarez can get those two things right, Real Salt Lake has the capacity find themselves consistently in the top tier in the West. It will, however, probably take more than just 2020 to figure it out.
2019 in Review
Real Salt Lake’s hallmark in 2019 was their defense. They were fourth in the league in goals allowed, third in expected goals allowed, and eighth in shots allowed. They were superb at preventing counter attacks. FiveThirtyEight’s SPI had them as the best defensive team in MLS.
Their attack, however, was much less effective. Real Salt Lake were 8th worst in goals for and 3rd worst in expected goals for. FiveThirtyEight had them as the third worst offense in the league. Sam Johnson led the team in xG per 90, at only 0.41, which is roughly Bojan, Fanendo Adi, Dom Badji-level. So good enough to be your starting forward, but not if you want your attack to be good.
I’ve written about this elsewhere, but I think Real Salt Lake’s attacking numbers come down more to the system than to the players in it. Since 2018, RSL were 3rd and 2nd in the league in the conservative-ness of their passing around the box. They were 2nd to last and last in average shot quality. Under Petke, RSL settled for shots from distance, rather than trying to split defenses with risky final balls.
These stats tend to be indicators of a lack of ideas in the final third, and you see them especially with coaches in their first season with a team. The xG per shot of Atlanta under De Boer dropped 25% from where Tata Martino had them the previous season. The Crew under Caleb Porter dropped 12%. Luchi Gonzalez’s Dallas dropped 6%. Typically, these numbers recover after a coach spends more time implementing attacking movement and a system. Those numbers under Petke never ticked back up. Juarez has an opportunity to improve the team there. If he does, RSL’s attack will look better, without having to add significant talent to do it.
The other area where Petke’s RSL struggled was in youth development. Two of the team’s brightest prospects, Jefferson Savarino and Corey Baird, got worse year over year in xG + xA per 90. Promising winger Bofo Saucedo left Real Salt Lake for Liga MX, at least in part over playing time. Fullbacks Brooks Lennon and Danilo Acosta were shipped elsewhere within MLS. Youth development is a hard thing to get right, and it’s probably not fair to put everything on Petke, but his track record wasn’t great. If Juarez can do better there, it’s a massive lever for improving the club’s standing, especially as they move more fully into a team dependent on its kids.
Offseason Changes
Though RSL is returning 75% of their minutes from last season, it’s not totally fair to say, as I did above, that RSL didn’t do much to improve the team’s talent. Real Salt Lake brought in three attackers - Justin Meram, Giuseppe Rossi, and Jeizon Ramirez - who, while not gamechangers, could all turn out to be pretty shrewd moves for a team that lacks creativity up top.
Justin Meram was, with the Crew, close to an elite MLS attacker. He has struggled since he moved to Orlando City in 2018, and last season put up the lowest xG + xA per 90 of his career in Atlanta. But that Atlanta team, across most of the attack, generally struggled to create chances. He typically plays on the wing, but for Columbus did occasionally fill in in the central midfield, and that flexibility will be important for an RSL attack that won’t go into 2020 with a set in stone front four.
Giuseppe Rossi comes to RSL having not played a first team game since 2018. Still, he has a good pedigree, is only 33, and the word, per RSL Soapbox, is that he has looked at least decent in preseason. And he doesn’t seem to tee up from distance with the same frequency as the rest of Real Salt Lake’s attack. Here’s his shot map from five years in Serie A and La Liga:
Jeizon Ramirez is almost an exact replacement for departing winger Jefferson Savarino. He’s just 18, and put up very good numbers in Venezuela’s Primera Division.
The team’s two biggest offseason losses were Savarino and Nick Rimando. Savarino’s loss is big, but Ramirez may be a competent replacement. Losing Rimando is immense. Rimando is second all time in ASA’s database (which goes back to 2011) in goals saved above expected. He had only two seasons - 2011 and 2019 - where he allowed more goals than expected. Measuring shot-stopping ability is a very difficult thing generally. Rimando is one of the few keepers whom we know was excellent.
2020 Roster
It’s hard to say how Juarez will line the team up to start 2020. They’ve been playing a 4-2-3-1, but some of the choices for players in specific spots have been pretty odd. From what I can tell, and this is probably wrong, the depth chart looks about like this.
We haven’t seen Real Salt Lake come out especially pressy in pre-season, but I actually think it would be a pretty good option for them. Justen Glad and Everton Luiz both cover a ton of space, and creating through the press solves the team’s attacking difficulties. Rather than relying on movement up front, they’d create chances with their defense. It’s also a good way to maximize their youth focus (look at the Red Bulls, for example). Organizationally, teaching and playing a press at all levels of the academy pays dividends, as well.
For the most part, RSL have a pretty good mix of youth and experience across each of their lines. They also have a lot of flexibility in how they can play, based on who they line up there.
Keeper
Zach MacMath appears to be the front runner to be Rimando’s replacement. MacMath is around league average in both shot-stopping and distribution. He is perfectly fine as a starting keeper, especially given the defense in front of him.
Defense
Most of RSL’s fantastic defense from last season is back, so you’d think Juarez would just run it back, right? So far in preseason, Glad is lining up as a right back, and Aaron Herrera is on the right wing. I do not understand it, but if it works, Juarez is a genius.
Midfield
Real Salt Lake has a lot of options through the middle. Albert Rusnak can play as the starting CAM, but so can Meram. I do think RSL could stand to add a number eight. Kyle Beckerman might start the season there, but he’s losing his legs defensively, and his passing ability has declined, as well. I went into this article believing, on the basis of RSL’s defensive counter attacking stats, that Luiz was excellent last year as the number six. He might not be, at least in a way that pops out in his individual stats:
Forwards
Real Salt Lake have a few options on the forward line, as well. Rossi and Damir Kreilach can play up top as withdrawn nines rather than out and out strikers. Sam Johnson gives them a different look as a more traditional forward who can make runs off of the backline’s shoulders.
Out wide, RSL is pretty young. It will be exciting to watch which of their prospects seizes their opportunities and puts together a solid season.
2020 Expectations
RSL in 2020 will look a lot like FC Dallas last year. They’ve got a new coach, and they’re transitioning more strongly into a youth movement. Last year, I said Dallas was probably at least a year away from being competitive. A relatively weak Western Conference made that timeline shorter, and they were in the playoffs in year one. FiveThirtyEight has Real Salt Lake this year at 52% to get into the playoffs, and that feels about right. The team is mostly the same, and there’s some clear, low-hanging fruit that Juarez can capitalize on to improve the team. Even if it takes time to get that figured out, the team’s defense is an excellent foundation upon which to build (provided Juarez doesn’t tinker unnecessarily). That defense will put a limit on how far RSL falls. That said, most of the West has gotten noticeably better over 2019. It’s not enough in MLS to just tread water. That probably places RSL near the bottom of the top-seven.
This probably is the right offseason to make that harder pivot towards youth. RSL has a new coach and a turned over front office. They should have some time to work things out. And they’re not currently in a championship window - they’re probably about two cuts below the top teams in the league. Though the 2020 season might be a difficult one, it should set them up well for sustained success in the future.