At one point during the 2024 regular season, Real Salt Lake were being touted as Western Conference title, MLS Supporters’ Shield and even MLS Cup contenders. They were playing champagne football, with Andres Gomez, Diego Luna and Chicho Arango forming one of the most dangerous attacking partnerships in the league.
They were neck-and-neck with the elite of the West, LAFC and the LA Galaxy, and Arango was leading the league in scoring by a wide margin. The Colombian was genuinely unstoppable. He had scored three braces and two hat-tricks by June 1, with 15 total strikes by the start of the month on the campaign. There were suggestions he could even be on track to break Carlos Vela’s stupendous 2019 MLS record of 49 goal-contributions in one season.
Then he was suspended for four games, with Real Salt Lake saying in a statement the ban was tied to “a violation of the MLS anti-harrasment policy.” Luna was then was snubbed from the USMNT Olympics roster, and in August, Gomez was transferred to Ligue 1 side Saint Etienne for club-record fee. In that same window, their brightest prospect and 2023 USL Championship Young Player of the Year, Fidel Barajas, was transferred to Liga MX side Chivas De Guadalajara.
Manager Pablo Mastroeni, meanwhile, brought in two European replacements in Diogo Goncalves and Dominik Marczuk, dubbing Goncalves as “the most equivalent” to Gomez, who departed after having a career year with the Western Conference side.
The Portuguese midfielder recorded zero assists and scored just two goals in 12 appearances, while Marczuk scored one goal and had one assist in 10. Arango, meanwhile, scored just one goal after June 1, while Luna was not the same exciting player much of MLS recognized him to be after his Olympics omission.
Nothing went to plan, nobody performed to the expectations, and RSL unceremoniously exited the postseason in Round One against Minnesota United after losing two-straight matches. How did an exciting and brilliant team go from contender to catastrophic? GOAL takes a look.