The San Jose Earthquakes will travel to Sandy, Utah to face Real Salt Lake on Saturday, Oct. 30 at Rio Tinto Stadium. Saturday’s match marks the final road game of the season for the Quakes.
The Quakes fell to the Portland Timbers 2-0 at Providence Park on Wednesday, eliminating the team from postseason contention. Even though MLS Cup Playoffs are out of the picture and Saturday’s match marks the penultimate game of the year, Earthquakes head C=coach Matias Almeyda wants to finish the 2021 MLS season as strong as possible.
“I think many dreams came to an end today — the sporting dreams that we had,” Almeyda said after Wednesday’s result. “Looking at the first half, we had some chances to open the scoring. The first half was under control, it was even. They hurt us at the right time. In the second half, we were looking for the result because we needed to win. We knew spaces would open up. The team made a huge effort, but we were outplayed by the opponent. We repeated what we had been practicing but we weren’t able to finish our chances. Individual mistakes are possible. We were up against a great team that scores many goals and possesses important players in their offense. Even if we have two matches left, we need to finish the best way possible, but this is the end of what we were preparing for.”
Saturday marks the third and final match between the two clubs in 2021. San Jose holds a winning record of 13-12-11 in all-time regular season fixtures against Real Salt Lake, claiming three of the last five matches in the series. A brace from Chris Wondolowski led the Quakes to a 2-1 victory at Rio Tinto Stadium on May 7. San Jose would later fall to the Utah side 4-3 on Sept. 15 at PayPal Park, where Chofis scored his first career hat-trick.
Real Salt Lake continues in the race to qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs, sitting in seventh place in the Western Conference (45 pts.). RSL, who defeated FC Dallas 2-1 at home on Wednesday, have only been defeated twice at home in 2021 (9-2-4). The Utah side is led by Damir Kreilach (15) and Albert Rusnak (11), who lead their team in goals and assists, respectively. Rubio Rubin has also proven to be a threat to the Quakes after scoring three goals against San Jose this year.
Kickoff from Rio Tinto Stadium is set for 12:30 p.m. PT and will be broadcast nationally on Univision, TUDN, Twitter (English audio), KNBR 1050 and 1370 KZSF.