Former Crew DF Philip Quinton's career comes full circle in joining Real Salt Lake
The former Columbus center back found his way to Salt Lake after all after the Crew initially traded for his MLS SuperDraft rights with RSL back in 2022.
Philip Quinton had never had a week in his professional career quite like the one he experienced before his debut with Real Salt Lake.
The former 25th pick in the 2022 MLS SuperDraft by Columbus — who traded $50,000 in general allocation money to RSL to make the selection — Quinton joined Columbus Crew 2 in MLS Next Pro and made 28 appearances over the next two years.
The 6-foot-5 center back joined the Crew’s first team in 2023, and went on to score a goal in 13 appearances while helping Columbus win MLS Cup a year ago. He was in the middle of a four-year deal, and had just returned from helping secure a 0-0 draw at America First Field in Sandy, when his agent got a phone call.
Quinton was being traded — to Real Salt Lake.
So the former Notre Dame standout packed a bag, flew from northern Ohio to Chicago on Friday for RSL’s match against Chicago Fire FC, and went from delivering a yellow card-worthy hit to Diego Luna to providing cover for the Salt Lake midfielder, all in about 36 hours.
“He’s been very nice about it,” Quinton said with a laugh following his first training session with the club Tuesday in Herriman, Utah. “I’m appreciate for that.
“It’s definitely nothing I’ve ever done before. It was a new experience for me. But it was a great way to do; they were super welcoming, and made the transition easy. I feel like once we got on the field, I could just kind of be myself and figure it out.”
RSL and Columbus play a similar style of play, especially in defense, which explains part of the reason the Salt Lake side turned to the Crew when a minor crisis of center backs occurred.
The club was already without Marcelo Silva for an extended period of time (hamstring), and Justen Glad and Brayan Vera were both unavailable with injuries. Erik Holt had already been ruled out, and the club even went to call up Keller Storlie.
But when Alex Katranis took a knock around the 74th minute in a match RSL led 3-0 with first-time center-back pairing Bryan Oviedo and Bode Hidalgo, Quinton didn’t hesitate.
Armed with nothing more than a Saturday morning preparation session on an assistant coach’s laptop, he entered as a sub to see out a 4-0 road win after Diego Luna’s late goal to give his new club the final scoreline.
“The coaches were tremendous, honestly,” Quinton said. “They sat down with me around lunch on Saturday, trying to understand the basic fundamentals of the attack and defensively. They understand, obviously, that I won’t pick up on all of it on the first night. But what they gave me were the tools to feel like I was confident when I stepped on the field that I could play with the team and help us get a result.”
Head coach Pablo Mastroeni didn’t blink, either. He knew what he had in Quinton — after just playing him, but also after gunning for the rising defender in a time of need.
“One of the things that was attractive about Philip was that their attacking structure is similar to ours, and the way they want to play out of the back,” Mastroeni said. “I feel like you can make a lot of gains just by having a player that plays in that same system and asking them to make a lot of passes centrally.
“The quirks are going to be defensively; we run a bunch of different schemes, and understanding his role will take a little bit of time. But when Katranis goes down on the weekend, and you look down the bench and have Philip, that’s why he’s here. He’s here to play — and I thought he made some good plays and will only continue to improve as time goes.”At one point earlier in the week in training, Mastroeni was pressed into action as a backup center back to finish one drill. At least the club won’t have to do that again.
Or will they?
“I kind of liked it. It was a bit nostalgic,” he said cheekily. “But I’m happy to sit out.”