The 39.5 over/under from soccer wise really is a solid line. I just can’t see this club averaging more than 1.1 points per game. @goobx1 do you have an inside scoop about the leash Pablo is on? Suggesting he could be canned at the World Cup break if things don’t go well seems a wild spot to me. I think the club could be dead last and they wouldn’t do that - barring a 2025 la galaxy level start to the season
I think we have a significantly better roster than at the start of 2025. But that roster was terrible, so even a significant improvement might not make it a good roster. I don't think we can count on Rafa Cabral to save us as many points; his form was crazy good all year. Those two things seem to cancel each other out to me, resulting in a similar number of points.
According to transfermarkt, and RSL has a ton of kids on the roster (I'd really like to hear how they can have so many more players than other teams, 37, Dallas is next with 34) and 10 players don't have a transfer value. Dallas has 8. 8 teams have 30 or more players, only two more than 32. That large roster is also the youngest average team in the league (tied with MTL). They have the tied for 6th lowest average player value (again, tied with MTL). All those pieces of info make it hard to think that RSL can match the point total from last season. It's such a hard first 15 games though and who knows what happens after the WC. I think RSL will look better this season and hopefully they play a more attractive and entertaining style of soccer. My guess as of now is 42 points on the season.
https://www.rsl.com/news/miller-spo...ounces-legacy-partnership-with-sme-industries New premium seats at the stadium? I'm curious to hear what people think about these once they see them at the games.
I absolutely don't have any inside info on this. It's all my conjecture. I'm going on my gut. At the start of last season in the "off the record" meeting, it was pointed out that RSL has faded 3 seasons in a row. Kurt corrected with the fact it had been 4 seasons in a row stumbling late in the season. I found that interesting. I also found it interesting that he was fine with the back line when I pointed out that I thought they needed to shore up the CB position. Who's laughing now Schmid? Just kidding. blind squirrel. lol I have always thought that there was some tension between the FO and Pablo. Why else would they bring in coaches to "help" him out? Long and winded reply, but I think if RSL absolutely craps the bed to start the season and is down at the bottom of the table I could see the Ides of March in May as Kurt might want to bring in his coach to go with his players. It may have to be really bad like 2 wins 3 draws 10 losses, which is very doable, at least on paper with that schedule. 9, 10, 11, points after 15 games and not looking great in Pablo's new system might be enough for Kurt to tell the Millers now would be the best time to ditch Pablo, bring in one of the Coaches that Kurt has on his list and give them plenty of time and plenty of games after the WC to make a splash. Especially with a new DP. It's a perfect recipe to ignite some excitement around the team. I think that is the only way Pablo doesn't make it to the end of the season. If they make it to the WC somewhere around the playoff line and playing good soccer he stays. That could definitely happen. One thing I will point out is that Pablo, for all of the rah rah motivator stuff, seems to wear his teams out both physically and mentally. When things don't go well, from the outside looking in, it definitely looks like the pressure gets to Pablo and thus the team. It would explain the end of season fade year after year. So no inside info. Just a lot of projection and guessing on my part.
The question for me, is who would get the blame first if things go real bad? If Morgan, Sanabria, Arias, Victor etc. don’t pan out and I am the Millers, I am going to look at Pablo and think, you have consistently turned lemons into lemonade with playoff appearances every season no matter how small the budget, how inexperienced the players, or who is on your staff etc. Absolutely have to figure out how to win in the playoffs again like the Western Conference Finals appearance. Looking at Kurt I would think, you have missed with over $20M dollars of my money. Hopefully all of those guys are hits and trusting Luna again for another season pays off but, I would just think that Kurt’s seat would be hotter than Pablo’s. Especially with Kreis kind of being higher on the totem pole now.
That's the argument right there isn't it. There would be a good case to let Kurt go considering the your argument of 20M down the drain but generally the coach gets the boot before the FO. They could both go for sure if things to pan out but I wonder how much the coaching change plays in to all of the this. From the outside looking in it looks like this is Pablo's staff now. If they look like trash but the talent is there it's the coach. If Morgan is a Diogo then yea, see ya Kurt. The JK thing is also interesting. Who is he closest too? My guess would be neither. JK is probably all about JK. I think that Pablo's record should speak for itself and it's pretty mid. Kurt track record is right there with him. Ultimately I hope that none of this is comes to pass and I am way off on my thoughts for the season. I doubt my opinion for Pablo will change. I think he is a decent coach but not an MLS Cup winning coach for RSL. Kurt is yet to prove he could build a winning club as well. I am just really curious to see how this all plays out this season.
From Doyle's preview column on Ghost.io: Real Salt Lake Every year I look at this roster, squint a bit, and say something to the effect of "mehhh I don't really know how this is supposed to work." Every year they go out and make the playoffs anyway. It's a triumph of the human spirit. This year... honestly, I do see the vision. YMMV on whether that's a good thing or bad, but I think there's a little bit more clarity in what's been built, and I hope that with said clarity comes more, uh, clarity in how they play. Like, I want to see them push numbers forward with more purpose and less recklessness, which obviously has the immediate downstream effect of them being tougher to gash on the counter or just harder to play through in general. I like this. I think it could work. My Worry: I'm not going to bet on it actually working, though, because changing to a very fluid 3-4-2-1 with rampaging center backs and pitch-controlling central midfielders and attacking wingbacks is, simply put, very very hard. Most teams that try it fail, and most that fail do so because they're too open defensively when possession is lost, and boy does that speak directly at this team's weak spot last year. There's also the matter of the top-end talent being something less than top-end when compared to the rest of the league. Now, maybe that is slowly (or quickly) revealed to be a misunderstanding of this group on my part, but honestly... they were a 41-point team last year, and they look a lot like a 41-point team this year. 3-4-2-1: Cabral; Engel, Glad, Yedlin; Sanabria, Spierings, Eneli, Gozo; Luna, Guilavogui; Olatunji
I’m more pessimistic than y’all which shouldn’t surprise anyone here. Offseason grade D+. They got rid of one of the 2 best players. They also got rid of a lot of dead weight, but the new players are big question marks to me. Frankly some of them might not work out either. Combine those unknowns fitting into Pablo’s new formation. Season Points-Under. See above question marks and recent injury news. Added that the first part of the schedule is tough. RSL under Pablo typically starts fast, but can he do that this time around? I’m skeptical. If they don’t start fast and then do the typical nose dive in the second half of the season this will be a disaster of a season.
It’s my understanding that the new stands in the North end are temporary in order to sell more tickets to the Inter-Miami match. I’m hoping they come down soon after. Although the WC window seems to be a logical time to do it.
I'm pretty sure that's true as those are their numbers on the club website. The only reason to doubt the 9 one is that Solans was also listed as a trialist in the pre-season. He is not even on the club website let alone have a number, but Spierings is, looks like he'll take #6. Cowell and Parker don't have number.
Dunny was on the radio saying RSL spent $14m this offseason. Transfermarkt has 7.93m Euros, that converts to about $9.3m. That's a pretty big $4.7m difference. I'm fine if they want to count they buyout of Goncalves, but that should have only been about half that given that his contract only had options after the 2026 season. And as I type this, I see that Transfermarkt says Arias already has a 1.7m Euro transfer on August 1 to RSL, so that's $2m. So year, I guess the Millers did spend about $14m this off-season. How about that?
The macro numbers look great, but it’s hard to not see the similarities between that spend and the post-Gomez spend. A lot of players that may be good, but when you hedge this much it can backfire
Absolutely, they need to go out and prove that this is money well spent. To be fair, the money spent on Olatunji and Marczuk are a TBD. The money spent on Goncalves and Brook was a waste. I'm not optimistic on Piol, but it is a smaller amount like Brook was.
Dunny is drinking the Kool-Aid, he says RSL will be a top 4-5 team in the West. To me, that's best case scenario. Will be a ton of fun if he's right.
That would be amazing and my 10th place pick would look silly. Totally down for that. If I were a betting man I would put money on RSL being closer to 10th than 4th. That's for sure.
"Expert" predictions from MLS: LAFC Vancouver Whitecaps FC San Diego FC Seattle Sounders FC LA Galaxy Austin FC Minnesota United FC Portland Timbers Houston Dynamo FC FC Dallas Real Salt Lake San Jose Earthquakes St. Louis CITY SC Colorado Rapids Sporting Kansas City I'm pretty sure they have the top 4 correct, in some order. LAG will be better and I can see them being 5th. I think 6th-12th is wide open. I don't think it's too crazy to see RSL finishing 6th. SJ is down talent right now, but I'm not sure I bet against Bruce finishing worse than RSL. I would bet on the MO teams finishing as the bottom 2 though. I still have a bet to settle from last season, but I'll take you up on that bet. What do we do if they finish 7th though?
Where did you hear him talk? Doyle has been breaking down MLS teams based on tiers. There's usually a pretty wide gap between the top 2-3 teams in each conference and the rest. I think there's no way we are a top 3 team in the West this year. I can't even imagine it. (If it does happen.... Whoa Boy!) Then there's a middling tier that is either underperforming or over performing, and maybe a team that just exists there. That's usually 4-6. The East last year this was teams 4-9. I could see us miraculously making this tier, but a long shot. But I think we will end up where we belong, fighting for a playoff spot yet again. We'll look good in a few matches against teams doing worse than us. We'll be embarassed by LAFC. We'll lose a game or two to the worst teams in the league. We'll fight injury issues in our midfield all year long. Sound familiar?