KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Real Salt Lake won 3-2 against St. Louis City SC, extending its unbeaten streak to three games.
- The victory moved RSL to 12th in the Western Conference, within striking distance of the playoffs.
- Coach Pablo Mastroeni emphasized accountability, with notable goals from Noel Caliskan and Diogo Goncalves.
SANDY — Real Salt Lake made its first big step Saturday in a homestand that could lift the team back into the playoff race.
The Claret and Cobalt scored three goals for just the second time in 2025 and the first time since April 26 in a 3-2 win over St. Louis City SC at America First Field.
The win extends the team’s unbeaten streak to three games and also begins a five-match month of July, including four home games. RSL moved up to 12th in the Western Conference with the win, 4 points behind the ninth and final playoff spot; and just 5 points now separate spots 7-13 in a tightly-contested race.
“This kind of puts us in the right frame of mind with confidence,” head coach Pablo Mastroeni said. “And now taking 7 points in the last three games, moving in the right direction, we’ve just got to double down on holding ourselves accountable to be the best version of ourselves.”
The first goal came from an unexpected place, with former Real Monarch player Noel Caliskan scoring his first MLS goal in the sixth minute after a corner kick rebound fell to the 24-year-old German native outside the box. He gathered it with one touch and then fired a perfect shot across the face of the goal and into the far corner for a 1-0 lead.
The second goal seemed to come from an unexpected place, as well, with Diogo Goncalves, RSL’s highest-paid player, scoring just his second goal of the season on a bending shot around St. Louis goalkeeper Roman Burki in the 43rd minute. His first and only goal this season before Saturday came on March 15.
Goncalves celebrated his goal on Saturday by striking the pose that fellow Portuguese footballer Diogo Jota used as his goal celebration. The 28-year-old Liverpool player died earlier this week in a car crash in Spain.
“It was an important goal that was dedicated to a former teammate of mine,” Goncalves said. “Dedicated not only to them, but also to their family and friends.”
Joao Klauss started the second half by spurring a comeback for visiting St. Louis with a header goal in the 51st minute. Goncalves forced an own goal from Josh Yaro in the 64th minute to extend RSL’s lead, once again, but St. Louis brought it back within one, 3-2, in the 81st minute.
Another header attempt from Klauss during stoppage time ended up just wide of the goal as the home crowd could breathe a final sigh of relief to celebrate the 3-2 win with fireworks on Independence Day weekend.
RSL continues the homestand with a major matchup against the eighth-place Houston Dynamo on Saturday, July 12 at 7:30 p.m. MDT. All-Star Diego Luna should be available against Houston after finishing his Gold Cup run against Mexico on Sunday at 5 p.m. MDT.
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.