Real Salt Lake seemed like the darling of MLS last summer before it went into the All-Star break.
It had two of the brighter stars in the sport — Chicho Arango and Andres Gomez — and was near the top of the table.
But a late-season collapse, and a first-round exit, changed everything for the club.
Gomez and Arango are both gone. Gomez was sold to a club in France last August. And after Arango went goalless to end the year following his team suspension, the club traded him away to San Jose last week.
To most, the Gomez transaction made sense. RSL brought in $11 million for his record-breaking fee. But to trade away Arango, who scored 17 goals and led the league until July, was more head-scratching.
“It probably wasn’t as sudden for me as it is for all of you. Obviously you saw how last season went. The second half wasn’t as good as the first,” Kurt Schmid, the club’s sporting director, said Wednesday.
“We have a lot of conversations internally, with the staff and with Chicho,” he continued. “And he came to us at a point in the offseason and asked us to find a solution for him and his family to find a fresh start. I thought we found a solution that was a best-case scenario for everybody.”
The club received $1.5 million in general allocation money for Arango. But it still leaves RSL with a goal-scoring problem. Who will the club bring in to fill the void? And are there any internal candidates?
Schmid is exploring both options.
“You can expect whatever you want. Big [signing], small [signing]. It’s up to you guys,” he said. “I think you can expect from us a signing that helps the team be successful. ... Whether that player costs $10 million is not the important part. The important part is [can he finish chances]. What the player costs is not my focus so much. We are looking for the right fit.”
RSL coach Pablo Mastroeni knows his team will change tactically without Arango. Before, Arango tended to operate outside the team model. Because of the way he played, RSL wouldn’t have players crashing into the box, instead deferring to Arango.
Now that will be different.
“Things morph. Now, Chicho is a special player and he makes goals, he outproduces his xG [expected goals] quite a bit,” the manager said. “But how do we get [others] more productive? The best way to explain that is by having the striker occupy the center back, playing the highest line. And there is never a ball that comes across. We didn’t have guys crashing the box [last year] because [Arango] was at the top of the box and doing his thing.”
Mastroeni admitted losing Arango could free up the younger players. Last season, Mastroeni was open about struggling to get through with Arango after his suspension. He violated the team’s anti-harassment policy.
“When you have a guy like Chicho, he takes up a lot of space both emotionally and physically,” he said. “He’s in the areas. And now it provides room for the other guys who maybe didn’t have as much production. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to, it’s that they didn’t need to.”
He referenced Diego Luna, Diogo Gonçalves, Braian Ojeda and Dominik Marczuk as potential goal-scoring options.
“I believe collectively, if everybody plays to the game model,” it can work, he said. “We created a ton of chances last year. If we create the same amount of chances as we did last year, we are going to score some goals.”
If RSL does not sign a big name to replace Arango, Schmid doesn’t believe that signals a change in philosophy for the club.
“No, winning through development is our philosophy,” he said. “Play in the game model and produce when we ask them to.”
But with the season now four weeks away, there is still a goal-scoring vacuum waiting to be filled — however they get it done.
“We are going to have a striker out there. it’s not like we aren’t going to have a striker out there,” Mastroeni said. “I believe we are great regardless of who is on the field, that is my greatest strength. It also might be my greatest weakness. So in this situation, it is how do we get more from the guys we have.”
