Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Zac MacMath collects a pass during the team’s 4-0 win over Orlando City SC, Saturday, July 8, 2023 at America First Field in Sandy, Utah. (Photo: Rob Gray, Utah Sporting News for Salt City FC)

Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Zac MacMath has found a home, and after playing every single minute of all 34 MLS regular-season games a year ago, he gladly signed a three-year contract extension to keep his home in Salt Lake City.

But home hasn’t always been the club’s strength — which made Saturday’s 4-0 win over Orlando City SC all the more enjoyable.

So, too, was MacMath’s second consecutive shutout — only his second repeat shutout run of the 2023 season.

Offensively boosted by the debut of former LAFC star Chicho Arango and defensively bolstered by the blooming partnership of Justen Glad and Brayan Vera, RSL is riding high on Cloud 9 as it heads to Sporting Kansas City for a mid-week match Wednesday at Children’s Mercy Park (6:30 p.m. MT, MLS Season Pass) with an eight-match unbeaten run and club-record four-match road win streak on the line.

No pressure, right?

“It’s really a lot of confidence,” MacMath said. “Over the last two months, we had a very busy schedule with the Open Cup and league play; a lot of players played those games, so it’s not just confidence 1-11, but a lot of confidence 1-25. Whoever Pablo decides to play, we can go out there and get a result.

“It’s a matter of everyone being on the same page … How we want to approach each game, home and away. I think it’s a big part of why we’ve had so much success the last few months.”

Kansas City is one of MacMath’s favorite places in the league to play. He knows the rivalry that has come between RSL and SKC fans, and he appreciates it.

But there’s something special about going on the road, playing in front of the Cauldron, and experiencing the soccer-specific atmosphere that has been bred on the banks of the Missouri river, he says, for the former MLS journeyman goalkeeper from Philadelphia, Colorado and Vancouver before landing in Salt Lake in 2020.

He says all this knowing, of course, that RSL has raced up the ranks of the Western Conference largely on the back of its road form. The Best Road Team in MLS™ is 6-3-2 away from America First Field in MLS play, and that creates its own form of expectation going against a Kansas City side that started slow before its current 6-10-7 mark in the standings, with five of those wins coming at home.

“You’re away from home, and the expectations aren’t has high,” MacMath explained during an episode of the Salt City FC podcast. “But now they are high; we expect to get results away. We expect to go to Kansas City and win this Wednesday, and we expect to come home and win again on Saturday.”

RSL is all-in on the roster after a slow start, and why shouldn’t they be after ownership spent around $14 million in reinforcements in the likes of center forward Cristian “Chicho” Arango, defensive midfielder Nelson Palacio and winger Andres Gomez, among others, to improve a playoff team that was left in limbo for nearly two years without an active ownership group.

That additional spending has made Salt Lake an instant contender for silverware, almost overnight, with a top-four mark in the West and a berth in the semifinals of the U.S. Open Cup ahead of next month’s Leagues Cup break between MLS and Liga MX.

Expectations are a privilege, and current expectations are a privilege RSL is happy to have.

“The expectations have certainly risen the last couple of months with the new additions, and the way that Pablo wants us to play is very aggressive,” MacMath added.

“If you don’t play with bravery, discipline and aggression, then we don’t give ourselves a chance to win. We kind of have to put all of our chips on the table, and that’s what we’ve been doing.”

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