Twice in the last seven months, Real Salt Lake set a club record transfer fee. Since January, the club has spent more than $12 million on transfer fees alone.
This reality is unrecognizable from the situation just two years ago. At the time, owner Del Roy Hansen was in the process of selling RSL following an investigation by MLS. The Athletic reported his history of racist remarks and promoted a toxic work culture.
As MLS seeks new ownership, general manager Elliot Fall has the enviable task of leading the club. Somehow, despite these and other changes, with head coach Freddy Juárez stepping down during the 2019 season and being replaced by Pablo Mastroeni, the RSL remained competitive. The RSL have made the playoffs in three of the last four years and are unlikely to reach the Western Conference Finals in 2021.
“Oh yeah, I think about those 15 months a lot,” Fall said. The Athletic.
Since the club’s birth in 2007, the fall has seen the good, the bad and the ugly. The club is entering a new era. Philadelphia 76ers and Crystal Palace owner David Blitzer and Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith jointly acquired RSL last year, but Fall and his staff remained. The same group that operated on a limited budget now has money to spend.
“It’s been really fun to be a part of the next transition,” Fall said. “I have been lucky or unlucky to work for every owner this club has had so far, depending on what era you are talking about.”
Big changes are underway this year, and they have accelerated this summer. Real Salt Lake surged to sixth in the West, providing a major addition. Chicho Arango signed a new club recordAcquired from Pachuca of Liga MX for a transfer fee of $ 6 million.
Arango, 28, is a proven goalscorer in MLS. He scored 35 goals and provided six assists in 58 appearances (4,262 minutes) for LAFC, leading the club to the 2022 MLS Cup and Supporters Shield. He joined Pachuca in January for the same $6 million transfer fee. Once the summer transfer window officially opens, he will be eligible to make his RSL debut on July 8 against Orlando City.
“You can plan for three years from now, but you know you’re a long way off when you’re running other sports teams,” Smith said. “The important thing is that we are ready and ready to compete. , is more important than saying, ‘I have the perfect plan,’ even though I know it won’t work out that way.”
The club have struggled to find a consistently dominant goalscorer in recent years, but things have improved with the arrival of Arango, who joins an attacking line-up that includes Damir Krailach, Jefferson Savarino, Andrés Gomes and Diego Luna. I believe it has changed. Krailach has scored 16 goals in 2021, but has been RSL’s top scorer with 11 or fewer goals in six of the last eight seasons.
Savarino has scored 11 goals and provided six assists in 34 regular-season games since returning to the club last spring. Gomez, a highly rated 20-year-old winger who was acquired for around $4 million this winter, has one goal and four assists in his debut season. The 19-year-old Luna has established herself in the starting lineup after playing for the United States at the U-20 World Cup. He signed the contract last summer.
“Thanks to Chicho, I think we’ve finally brought in a player who can raise the bar across the board,” Fall said. “The whole strategy during the 12-15 months without an owner was how to build a competitive roster in this league and still be flexible with the owner and the right level of investment. ‘In the right part? With Chicho you can. On one level, Andrés Gómez played a big part in that too. And last year I did it with Sava (Jefferson Savarino). ”
The RSL have one more game (against Toronto FC) before Arango makes his debut. The club are in the middle of a play-off battle in the West, with just four points separating third and ninth. Fall said he knew the rush of games early in the season meant fewer summer signings in the second half of the season, so it was spec to arrange a deal to be ready as soon as the transfer window opened. Told.
RSL continued its pre-window business with the addition of Colombian midfielder Nelson Palacio from Atlético Nacional. The young central midfielder will join through the U-22 initiative.
“Nelson is a very athletic and mature player for his age,” Fall said. “He just turned 22 and is probably the man who has started every playoff match for the Colombian first team. For a 22-year-old, that’s pretty amazing.”
The RSL currently have all three DP slots (Krailach, Savarino and Arango) and three U-22 slots (Gomez, Palacio and Brian Ojeda) and the club probably won’t be finished this summer. The club want midfielder Ojeda to stay when his loan from Nottingham Forest expires in July. Those negotiations are still ongoing. The club also has the flexibility to continue adding when suitable players and contracts become available.
“We are really fortunate to have a group of decision makers, from Ryan and David at the top, to us people on the ground here. We want to make sure that our decision is ‘go through the right process,'” Faure said. “…It was really fun to be able to do that through ownership. It was something we had never really experienced.”
In their first press conference after officially becoming Real Salt Lake owners, both Blitzer and Smith claimed to increase investment in the club. The move was well received by fans and was without an owner for over a season, and prior to that, spending had always been low among MLS clubs.
“It’s not as fast as anyone would like, but we didn’t buy this not to invest,” Smith said. “We need to bring back this move in Utah that MLS can provide. Winning will do that. To do well, we want to be stable over the long term … I think this shows that our investment is steadily increasing and our fan base will be with us. If you come with us, hopefully that fan base will grow.”
(Photo: Rob Gray-USA TODAY Sports)
