• Matchday 25: Real Salt Lake vs New York City FC
• Date and Kickoff Time: Saturday, September 12, 9:40 pm ET
• Venue: America First Field, Sandy, UT
• Forecast: Clear and warm but not humid, 84F/28C
• Watch: Apple TV
• Apple Broadcast Team: Max Bretos and Brian Dunseth (English); Jorge Perez-Navarro and Marcelo Balboa (Spanish)
• New York City FC Radio: Glenn Crooks and Matt Lawrence (English), Roberto Abramowitz and Ariel Judas (Spanish)
• Officiating Crew: Abdou Ndiaye (referee), Cameron Blanchard and Walt Heatherly (assistant referees), Alexis Da Silva (fourth official), Younes Marrakchi (VAR), Joshua Patlak (assistant VAR)
• Kits: New York City will be in the sky-blue Excelsior Kit; Real Salt Lake in its claret-and-cobalt-blue Switchback Kit
Two stoppable forces collide as New York City FC travels to the mountain west to take on Real Salt Lake in a battle of teams mired in extended winless streaks.
New York City is two days removed from suffering one of its toughest losses of the season, a stoppage-time defeat at home at the hands of the New England Revolution. That result made it eight straight matches without a win for NYCFC, seven if you count only the club's MLS results.
Real Salt Lake is in even worse form. They also lost at midweek, a 2-1 defeat on the road against Houston Dynamo FC, and RSL is now winless across its last 10 matches in MLS. Salt Lake did get some wins in Leagues Cup, reaching the quarterfinals as one of the four advancing MLS teams, but you have to go way back to May 16 for the club's last regular-season victory.
So it's a pair of teams desperate to stop ugly winless streaks, and a pair of teams operating on short rest as they try to earn that win. Neither side has a good record this calendar year while playing on three or fewer days of rest: RSL is 4W-2D-7L and lost each of its last four played on short rest, while NYCFC is 4W-3D-9L and winless across its last five played with limited time between games.
The playoff picture is dicey for each team. New York City (7W-8-9L, 29 points) holds ninth place and the final Eastern Conference berth on goal differential over 10th place Toronto FC. Real Salt Lake (8W-5D-10L, 29 points) is 10th place in the Western Conference, one point behind San Diego FC in ninth, and three points off seventh place with a game in hand on the teams directly above it.
New York City FC H2H Record vs Real Salt Lake
| G | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 14 | 10 | 4 |
This will be New York City's fifth visit to Rio Tinto-turned-America First Field after what's been a winless first four trips. The club's best away result vs RSL came in the last trip to Utah on June 10, 2023, a 0-0 draw in which Luis Barraza made four saves to keep a clean sheet.
That draw in 2023 occurred during another prolonged NYCFC winless streak, as back in 2023, the club played Real Salt Lake away while winless in eight matches across MLS and US Open Cup competition. That draw was part of the 2023 winless streak extending to 12 games (11 just in MLS), tied for the longest in the club's history.
