Estimated read time: 2-3
minutes
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Diego Luna received a controversial red card, impacting RSL’s 1-0 loss to Toronto.
- The referee upheld the decision despite video review, sparking debate from fans and the team.
- RSL struggled offensively, managing 23 shots with only six on target against Toronto.
SANDY ā It was a memorable week for 21-year-old Real Salt Lake star Diego Luna.
He was invited backstage to meet rapper Travis Scott at Coachella, met Star Wars actor Diego Luna on the Hollywood red carpet and received the first red card of his MLS career on Saturday.
While Luna and RSL fans might not be as excited about the last one, it was a pivotal moment in handing RSL its sixth loss in nine games to start the season, falling 1-0 to Toronto FC at America First Field.
The home team found itself down early after a goal in the ninth minute by Toronto, and down a man 61 minutes into the match when Luna went to the ground in a challenge with Raoul Petretta. The two got tangled up, and a confrontation ensued between the two teams.
After the scrum separated, referee Sergii Demianchuk pulled out the red and showed it to Luna. The video assistant referees in the replay center told Demianchuk to take another look at the play, after which the seventh-year Professional Referee Organization official doubled down on the original call on the field.
“To have that long of a look at it, and, I understand from a referee’s perspective, there’s ego involved when that happens,” head coach Pablo Mastroeni said of the review. “But I think as a casual observer, you look at that and I think you make a different decision.
“There is no conclusive evidence based on the video … so to me, it’s not a red card,” he added. “I don’t even know what to say, because (Luna) is the most trustworthy teammate, a guy that’s not going to put his team behind the eight ball, and that wasn’t his fault.”
RSL went to 10 men and Toronto stacked its defensive line to limit RSL to mostly inefficient shots from outside the box. The home team put up 23 total shots but just six on target, while Toronto had two total shots and one on target.
Mastroeni spoke at length about getting more players in the box to take advantage of attacking chances and “being killers in front of goal” when the opportunity arises. He singled out designated player Diogo Goncalves in particular and said the Portuguese attacking midfielder needs to “be a hero” for RSL in those moments.
The loss marked Toronto’s first win of the season and its first win in Utah since 2007 at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
RSL now embarks on a three-game road trip to San Diego, Vancouver and Dallas, before returning to America First Field on Portland on May 14.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.