Match Thread: San Jose Earthquakes v. Real Salt Lake

Predicted Lineup

Rimando; Beltran, Watson-Siriboe, Schuler, Mansally; Beckerman, Grabavoy, Gil, Velasquez; Saborio, Plata

Pre-match reading

RSL Soapbox: Match preview

RSL Soapbox: Rotation, attack from midfielders key to approach

Quake, Rattle and Goal: 2013 Earthquakes season preview

Pre-match quotes

Garth Lagerwey on the changes in defense: "We're not going to replace Olave — we have to replace him in the aggregate. We have to change the way we defend, both in midfield and in defense, in order to have a better shape as a team in order to compensate for the loss. We don't have one guy whose speed is an eraser of all the mistakes we make. we have to defend a little more conservatively, a little more compactly. We're going to be patient. We believe in those kids, we believe they're going to be good players, and we're going to stick with them."

Jason Kreis on the attacking midfield spot: "I think that it's going to be a flat-out competition every single week. In the preseason, we used Grabavoy for a large stretch, Sebastian got minutes there, Stertzer got minutes there, and Stephenson actually got minutes there early on. I think all four of those players could contribute in certain ways, you get different things out of all four. Now you add back Luis Gil, who wasn't with us in preseason at all. I think we have five players who we can rotate in that position, and I don't want to give too much stress to that individual position for me. If things go the way I want them to be, all three players that are in front of our holding midfielder will spend equal amount of time in that spot behind the two forwards. If they're dynamic enough, it won't matter who starts there."