RSL’s full back setup gets interesting with Phillips injury, Acosta sub with Monarchs

Depending on how you interpret recent events, Danilo Acosta’s chances at getting minutes with Real Salt Lake either just got a lot better or they got a lot worse.

I’m going with better.

After 11 minutes, Acosta found himself on the receiving end of a substitution during the Real Monarchs match. He walked off under his own power, certainly, and it didn’t look like he was injured in any way.

You’d wonder why, unless you were paying attention to Real Salt Lake’s match at the same time: Only minutes earlier, Adam Henley entered the match for Demar Phillips, who went down with an injury. With the Monarchs starting about 25 minutes after RSL’s kickoff, that puts RSL around 36 minutes in — just before Marcelo Silva called for a substitution.

That puts us in a position of not really knowing if Silva’s injury was a factor, but we can be relatively certainly that we’re now setting out a game plan for Wednesday’s match. We’d be remiss if we didn’t at least think about that.

It sure looks like Danilo Acosta has an opportunity in front of him. Whether or not he takes it, though, is up to him.