For the better part of Real Salt Lake’s MLS winless skid that dated back a dozen matches to May 16 before the FIFA men’s World Cup break, Real Salt Lake has often been bested by big-named, high-priced designated players littered across the league.
On Wednesday night, it was a pair of ex-RSL attackers who did the damage.
Danny Musovski and Albert Rusnák each scored a second-half goal as the Seattle Sounders snapped a 13-match winless skid of their own with an emphatic 2-0 win over Salt Lake at Lumen Field in Seattle.
The result marks the third-straight shutout loss for Salt Lake (8-13-5, 29 points), which dropped to 12th in the Western Conference and 23rd in the league with a 12th consecutive dropped result on the road across all competitions.
Long after a late change to the Starting XI brought in Kobe Henry for Alex Katranis, who suffered an adductor injury during pregame warmups, RSL fell behind on a pair of second-half goals from outside the box.
RSL out-shot the hosts 12-11, but put just two shots on frame as Seattle (8-9-8, 32 points) snapped a run of five consecutive draws — and 13 winless in MLS play — with Musovski’s well-placed shot in the 48th minute and never looked back.
Rusnák’s goal in the 73rd minute was window dressing for the Sounders, who got two assists from former U.S. international Paul Arriola in the win that extended the visitors’ winless skid to a club-record 13-straight in MLS play and broke the franchise record set during Salt Lake’s 2005 expansion season.
“I think the guys really executed the game plan to a T,” RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni said post-match. “It’s tough; going through this stretch, it’s really tough.
“But coming from the last game, this is what I asked myself: Did we compete the right way? And this is what I asked the guys in the locker room: Did you work extremely hard for the guy next to you when he made a mistake? Absolutely. Tactically, between the boxes, did we execute the game plan? Yes … Then one-on-one, we didn’t even get a shot off.
“That, for me, is the tell-tale difference of where we’re at and where we need to be,” he added. “And then the opponent scored two goals outside our box, the kinds of shots we want.”
In suffering three consecutive shutout losses for the first time since April 2023, Salt Lake has been outscored 7-0 by New York City FC, Vancouver Whitecaps FC, and Seattle — which jumped up to ninth in the West (10th on goal differential) to vault back into the playoff conversation with the win.
RSL now sits 3 points under the playoff line with seven matches remaining in the 2026 regular season. As of Wednesday night, only one of the remaining opponents — Sporting Kansas City on Saturday, Oct. 17 — resides ahead of RSL in the league table.
With the transfer window closed in nearly every country worldwide, Salt Lake’s roster is virtually locked — and Mastroeni only knows one path forward.
“If we’re doing everything we can and it’s still not enough,” he said, “we’re either not good enough at the moment — or we’re unlucky.
“There’s only one way forward, and that’s to put your head down and keep grinding.”
RSL returns home Saturday to host the New England Revolution. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. MT on Apple TV.
