Wasatch Soccer Sentinel
Morgan Guilavogui is officially a Real Salt Lake player, and with that, the team's roster is truly starting to take shape before the season kicks off in a shockingly short 18 days.
18 days, if you can believe it.
I thought I'd take a few minutes to break down what exactly the roster's looking like, what depth pieces exist, and how Guilavogui's arrival shapes the team's preparations. I'm also operating under the assumption that Juanma Sanabria is arriving shortly; this is obviously not yet verified, but it seems a pretty safe bet at this point.
We're going to take this fairly quickly, positional group-by-group
Goalkeepers
We're stable here year-over-year.
- Rafa Cabral
- Mason Stajduhar
- Max Kervliet
Center backs
Given it looks like we're playing a 3/5-man backline, one would hope there are a lot of center backs here.
- Justen Glad
- Lukas Engel
- Sam Junqua
- Philip Quinton
- Kobi Henry
Among our draft picks are Lukas Magnason and Dylan Kropp, neither of whom has been announced as having signed a deal; Kropp did appear on the preseason roster.
Unconfirmed rumors include one more player: Juan Jose Arias.
We might also consider DeAndre Yedlin as part of this group as a wide center back — he played there in preseason. It's unclear if the plan is for him to play there when the season starts.
Left wing back
- Juan Manuel Sanabria — unconfirmed but presumptive
- Alex Katranis
- Lukas Engel — I think he largely plays wide center back on the left side, though.
We might also consider Ruben Mesalles from Real Monarchs in this position; he played there in preseason. As I've written recently, I'd be surprised if Katranis stays to play second fiddle.
Right wing back
- Dominik Marczuk
- DeAndre Yedlin
Central Midfield
- Stijn Spierings
- Noel Caliskan
- Emeka Eneli
- Pablo Ruiz
- Griffin Dillon
Attacking Midfield
- Diego Luna
I honestly don't think there's another player who fits in this spot — Luna plays a roughly free role, and no other player on the roster fits the bill even remotely. Either RSL will need to sign a player here, an academy player will have to really surprise us, or the team will have to just do something different.
Forward
- Victor Olatunji
- Morgan Guilavogui
- Zavier Gozo
- Jesus Barea
- Ariath Piol
- Sergi Solans
Players for whom there is no clear place
- Tyler Wolff — will he play at RWB, at forward, or in attacking midfield? We've only seen him out wide, but never in a part-defensive role like that.
- Zach Booth — as above, but sub RWB with LWB.
I've not included young academy graduates here, as I don't think there's any clear expectation around their playing time.
Brief thoughts
It does still feel a bit like there's something missing here. Perhaps it's the understanding that both Diego Luna and Zavier Gozo are likely to be gone this summer, but if the team is playing a system that demands an attacking midfielder, what's to be done if Luna doesn't play?
I wonder about Tyler Wolff and Zach Booth as well, neither of whom are particularly well-suited to wing back play from the looks of things. Both are naturally wide players; will they have opportunities to play in natural roles, or will they be getting minutes here and there in vague attacking roles?
