Making Of A Moment

Real Salt Lake coach and former player Pablo Mastroeni was able to sit down with Amy on two occasions to talk about his journey and his philosophies on being a coach, being a player and just life in general. One thing that is so good about these two interviews with Pablo, is that his advice and ideas can help anyone who is trying to go somewhere. 

Real Salt Lake's magical run comes to an end, but not with the fairy tale ending everyone hoped to have. There are massive changes for RSL after the 2021 season - a coach is hired, the club finds and owner, and key players depart. The team, staff and the players are left to reflect: What does it all mean? If winning is the ultimate goal in professional sports, what other measurements matter? 

Real Salt Lake's 2021 Decision Day victory gave them the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. But they barely had time to celebrate when they were hit with another blow. Their reward for making the playoffs? A chance to play the Sounders - in Seattle. The team that had stolen their coach in August, a team that boasted one of the most potent offenses was standing between them and a fairy tale ending.

There is no player who embodies the culture of Real Salt Lake than Kyle Beckerman. When he was traded from Colorado to Utah in 2007, he instantly changed the culture of RSL’s locker room. He captained the team from 2008 until he retired in 2020. Beckerman has seen the club through its rise to glory - and through its bleakest times. This episode gives you more of his background, his time in Colorado where RSL head coach Pablo Mastroeni became his friend and mentor and what it was like to try and win soccer games when the front office was in chaos.

When Real Salt Lake’s head coach stuns everyone by quitting with 10 weeks left in the season, he leaves the team in the hands of a man RSL fans once loved to hate. And despite his unsavory history with the club, he seems uniquely suited to lead a team without an owner, picked to finish last, and abandoned by their head coach in August of 2021 to an unlikely playoff berth. All he has to do is lead Real Salt Lake to a win on the road on the last day of the regular season.

Dave Checketts was working for the NBA when he fell in love with soccer while traveling in Europe. He decided he wanted to build a club in his home state of Utah, but he had no idea the obstacles and heartache he’d face. This is more of the conversation we had with Checketts on the hurdles he faced building the team and why he had to sell his dream.

Real Salt Lake’s new owner - Dell Loy Hansen - called the club “a state trust” and hoped his contribution to soccer in Utah would become his legacy. He invested millions in a development academy, training facilities, a minor league team and eventually a National Women’s Soccer League club. But players and staff said RSL shifted from a familial ideal to a more transactional organization, and a toxic culture took hold and infected every aspect of the club. Even those who saw it, who hated it, who tried to do something about it, were powerless to create meaningful change. Things shifted when Hansen spoke out in a radio interview where he not only revealed that rot, he also lit a match that threatened to consume everything he’d built.

Brian Dunseth played for six different MLS clubs over the course of his career including a season with the Real Salt Lake. “Dunny" is one of the most recognizable people in soccer in America. He was the captain of the 2000 U.S. Olympic soccer team and is an MLS analyst for TNT, Apple TV, host on Sirius XM and co-host of the Week in Tackle podcast.  In this conversation with Amy Donaldson, Dunny talks about what it was like adjusting to life after professional sports and he reflects on the aftermath when RSL owner Dell Loy Hansen sold the team.  

Professional soccer got its start in Utah thanks to the visionary leadership and relentless will of an NBA executive. It was Utah native Dave Checketts who bought an MLS franchise and decided to put it in his home state. He fought political and financial battles to establish a club that would do what no other professional sports franchise in Utah has ever managed to do - win a championship. But while sports aficionados are fond of saying “there is no problem winning can’t solve”, that turned out not to be true for RSL and Dave Checketts.