Real Salt Lake

Real Salt Lake
Real Salt Lake is a professional soccer club based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The club began playing in Major League Soccer in 2005 and the team currently plays its home games at the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium. The team's major rivals are the Colorado Rapids, against which it competes with for the annual Rocky Mountain Cup, and C.D. Chivas USA, a fellow expansion team in 2005. The club has two major fan clubs - The Loyalists and the Rogue Cavaliers Brigade.

The word 'real' in the team's name is derived from the Spanish names of soccer teams such as Real Madrid that play in La Liga. In Spanish the word means royal and is pronounced 'ray-al'. The team's name was chosen by Dave Checketts and SCP Worldwide partners Dean Howes, Kenneth Munoz, Michael McCarthy and Chris Bevilacqua, who wanted to associate the team to a successful soccer club, Real Madrid, and also create a brand image for the team that was clearly to do with soccer. Intitially the team's name was not liked by many fans in the community who wanted a name more related to the Salt Lake Area. However, criticism of the name has more or less died down and the team has a solid relationship with Real Madrid which has proven very beneficial.

History of the Team
Real Salt Lake or RLS's present coach is Jason Kreis, who is Major League Soccer's all-time regular season scorer. He was the first player to be signed by RLS and he retired as a player on May 3rd, 2007 after which took over as the team's coach. Kreis replaced the first head coach John Ellinger, who was former coach of the Under-17 United States national team and the head of USSF's Bradenton Academy. Ellinger remained with the team as technical director/director of soccer operations till August 2007.

The original soccer team from Salt Lake City was the USL Second Division's Utah Blitzz, which wound up about the time Real Salt Lake formed. The Blitzz head coach Chris Agnello became the assistant coach for RSL but left after the inaugural season. On November 17, 2006, XanGo announced a multi-million dollar deal that would be advertised on the front of RSL's jersey. A month later, RSL announced the high-profile player acquisition of American teenage phenomenon Freddy Adu for the 2007 season. However, Adu left the team midway through the season to play in Portugal.

RSL and its Stadium Issues
In 2005 RSL gained approval to build a soccer specific stadium in Sandy, a suburb of Salt Lake City. However, due to funding problems, the proposal was struck down in early 2006. The mayor of Sandy, Tom Dolan, attempted to obtain another approval by revising the funding plan, but the proposal was again rejected due to a dispute over the use of millions of hotel-tax dollars going towards a financially unproven sports franchise. Franchise owner Dave Checketts declared that the plans for building the stadium were off, and expressed his desire to sell the team if a proposal for a stadium was not put forward by mid August 2006. Several parties expressed an interest in purchasing and moving the team, including Rochester, New York and St Louis, Missouri. At the same time, several other stadium sites were proposed such as the Utah State Fairgrounds and a small town called Vineyard in Salt Lake City. Eventually after several months of negotiations with local authorities and a change in the funding structure, an agreement between Checketts, Sandy City, and Salt Lake County was finally made to move forward plans for the construction of the originally proposed stadium.

In January 2006, plans for the stadium were again jeopardized when the Debt Review Committee of Salt Lake County voted totally against the stadium proposal citing Real Salt Lake's unviable financial position as the prime reason. Subsequently, the stadium plans was again shot down the club's owner announced that the team would be sold and most likely move out of the area after the 2007 season.

Real Madrid and the Youth Academy
In September 2006, Real Salt Lake and Real Madrid signed a 10-year co-operative agreement for the creation of a $25 million elite youth academy in SLC that would train up to 200 players between the ages of 12 to 18. The academy would be a joint project with Real Madrid, who would pay half the cost. Facilities at the academy would include a dorm as well, making it one of the first complete soccer training facilities in the country along with the Red Bull Academy of New York. Other features of the agreement include a biannual friendly match between the two teams to take place in Salt Lake City and annual training for RSL at the Real Madrid practice facility in Spain. The academy is intended to support the growing league-wide trend for youth development.

Rocky Mountain Cup
Real Salt Lake was the second expansion team to enter MLS in 2005 in the Rocky Mountain Region along with the Colarado Rapids who were the team's closet neighbor and rivals. Supporters of the two clubs hyped up competition between the two sides to foster the budding rivalry. Colorado won the Rocky Mountain Cup in its inaugural year, 9 points to 3, and successfully defended the Cup in 2006 by a margin of 7 points to 4.