San Diego FC 3 at Real Salt Lake 1 - March 8, 2025

The final stop on our four-sport Saturday was America First Field, home of Real Salt Lake of the MLS. Opened in 2008, this soccer-specific stadium is located in Sandy, about 18 miles south of Salt Lake City. It was originally known as Rio Tinto Stadium but the naming rights were bought by America First Credit Union in 2022 and have no political affiliation whatsoever.

Parking around the stadium seemed to be difficult and according to some reports, the postgame traffic was painful. We parked at Sandy City Hall as there is a shuttle bus that takes you to the stadium from there, a decision we regretted afterwards. Public transit might be your best bet as there is a TRAX station nearby. Upon arriving at the stadium, we checked at the box office and were happy to find hard tickets for $25. These were in the upper deck, which you can see on the far side in the photo below.

The franchise began play in 2005 and initially used the University of Utah's football stadium as their home ground, before moving here when it opened. The club has one MLS Cup, which they won in 2009, and they were the first MLS side to make it to the CONCACAF Champions League final in 2011, where they lost to Monterey. The term Real means 'royal' in English but there is no connection to any of the Spanish clubs that use it in their name (Madrid, Betis, Sociedad, Zaragoza). In fact, the colours and uniforms resemble those of FC Barcelona. 

We wandered the concourse for a while and I found it to be a typical soccer stadium, with a single lower seating bowl that surrounds the pitch, and the upper deck on the east side. The sideline seats are mostly covered, while those in the end zone are not, something that is unusual as most soccer stadiums have all seats covered to keep fans dry when it rains.



The supporters sit in the south end zone and these are mostly standing tickets, though there are reserved seats here as well. I liked how the flags were stored in a bucket so that the supporters can just leave them here rather than have to lug them back and forth. There were two such buckets and I am not sure if one was for the Utah Royals, the NWSL team that also plays here.

There is a small scoreboard above the south end

...and a much larger one on top of the north end. 

I don't know why they scheduled a night game in March in Salt Lake City (it was a beautiful day but it was cold come game time) but that didn't stop 19,337 from coming out, a bit less than the 20,213 capacity. One thing I found is that fans constantly got up during the action, something you never see when attending a game in the UK. I was impressed with the number of Hispanic fans; Utah is a Mormon state and predominantly white, so it was good to see that the club's marketing is reaching a different demographic. Still, sit down while the play is going on!

Overall, America First Field is already showing its age, at least in relation to some of the newer stadiums in the league such as Cincinnati and San Jose. It is still a decent enough venue but I would visit when it is a bit warmer.

The Game

San Diego FC, an expansion club, were visiting with a win and a draw in their first two matches having yet to yield a goal, while RSL had a win and a loss to start the campaign. The home side opened the scoring in the 17th minute when Dominik Marczuk chested a pass down and fed rookie Ariath Piol, who slotted past CJ dos Santos for an historic goal, the first given up by San Diego and the first in Piol's MLS career. Real continued to press but could not find another and late in the half, San Diego's Franco Negri headed what seemed like a savable ball but RSL keeper Rafael Cabral was slow to get to it and suddenly it was 1-1.

The second half saw the teams trade chances in a back-and-forth match but it entered stoppage time still tied. In the first minute, though, a cross from Willy Kumado was not cleared and fell to Anders Dreyer, who slammed it home, sending the fans home themselves. A few minutes later, the RSL defense was caught napping and Marcus Ingbvartsen received a perfect pass from Onni Valakarai and Cabral had no chance as San Diego kept their undefeated streak alive with a 3-1 win. That's the final goal celebration below.

Notes

After the game we went to the shuttle pickup area, where we had to wait for at least 30 minutes as they were only running a single city bus, which took at least 20 minutes to complete the round trip. It was quite frustrating given how cold it was and really cut into our postgame drinking time. I would advise to find parking closer or to leave the game early to get the first shuttle bus.

Best,

Sean