The Real Questions: June 5, 2019

Real Salt Lake - Is it time to move on from Marcelo Silva?

At one time, Marcelo Silva was the guy we banked on. Real Salt Lake didn’t have that many options at center back, and he was there when we needed him. Now though, with Nedum Onuoha doing great work in that position, is it time to move on? Silva hasn’t been getting consistent minutes, and when he does, the results have been less than ideal.

In Silva’s five starts in 2019, RSL has a -13 goal differential and only one win. In addition to that, Silva often leads to disciplinary issues with two yellows and a red in his 7 appearances. In 2018 Silva had seven yellows in 18 appearances keeping up a similar rate of a card almost every other game.

Silva has been with Real Salt Lake since 2017 and takes up one of the senior roster spots but has played just 34 games across three seasons. Especially of late, he’s caused RSL a lot of issues including an own goal against New York Red Bulls and even played with the Monarchs to a 4-2 loss against Phoenix last week. Perhaps it’s time to move on from Silva and sign someone new in the summer transfer window.

Utah Royals FC - Is Lo’eau Labonta the glue keeping everything together during the World Cup?

So far in 2019 Lo’eau Labonta has looked arguably the best we’ve ever seen her with Utah. She has taken her opportunity to get minutes with the World Cup this summer and played her heart out.

In game one of her suspension this week, Utah took their second loss of the season. This game was all around kind of ugly from Utah, but a lot of the issues seemed to be in the midfield. This leads you to wonder what would’ve happened if Labonta was in this one.

You can’t change a result, but with Desiree Scott and Christen Press gone to the World Cup, things on Utah’s attacking side of the game are drastically different. Labonta has a 76% pass success rate and a 63% success rate on tackles. She’s helped in the midfield both offensively and defensively. In this World Cup window, Labonta has been tremendous and after her suspension likely will continue to do the same.

Real Monarchs SLC - What needs to change?

After the 2017 and 2018 seasons, Real Monarchs SLC fans became pretty accustomed to winning games. After getting the taste of playoffs, fans want more. The start this season has had has left a lot of people with a bitter taste in their mouths. RMSLC is 3-6-3 on the season with an average of 2 goals allowed per game.

This raises the question, though: What needs to change? How can we get back to the success and development of seasons past, like 2017? A few people have thrown ideas around that perhaps there needs to be a personnel change. After a more or less successful 2018 campaign, making the playoffs only to lose in the first round, this team saw a drastic revamping.

Nearly the entire roster was let go and a new head coach, Martin Vasquez was brought in to take over for interim head coach Jamison Olave. There already has been a lot of personnel change but perhaps not in the right way. Of late, some fans have been calling for perhaps another coaching change.

Since the departure of Mark Briggs in late May of 2018, RMSLC is 7-8-4 between Olave and Vasquez for a losing record. In contrast, in 2017 the Monarchs were 20-5-7. Real Monarchs SLC is seen as a developmental team by a lot of fans, but at the end of the day, the players playing want to win games. Something seems off with this team right now. Perhaps a personnel change, whether that is new players or new coaches, is what they need. It is possible for this team to win games and develop players, but that’s not what’s happening right now with the current staff.