Real Salt Lake introduces new coaching staff on dawn of 2024 preseason

Pablo Mastroeni is back, but the third-year RSL manager will have a completely new coaching staff surrounding him.

Real Salt Lake’s technical staff is getting a makeover ahead of the 2024 season.

Pablo Mastroeni is back, but the third-year RSL manager will have a completely new coaching staff surrounding him, the team announced Tuesday ahead of the preseason.

(And, no, the group will not include former RSL coach Jason Kreis, who was brought back in a dual business/sporting role this offseason).

The club introduced new assistant coaches Nate Miller, Anthony Pulis and Jamison Olave, along with goalkeeper coach Mirza Hirambasic and performance coach Sean Buckley, ahead of Tuesday’s formal preseason opener that brings back 10 of 11 starters from last year’s MLS Cup Playoff team — including star striker Chicho Arango and midfield maestro Pablo Ruiz.

“RSL’s main goals always revolve around securing hardware and rewarding our fans with a winning product each week, at every level, and ultimately, championships,” said RSL sporting director Kurt Schmid, the club’s interim chief soccer officer with a general manager search ongoing. “An equally important mandate for us is to develop players, coaches, and staff in their journey, helping young adults become outstanding players and responsible citizens.

“Nate, Anthony, Jamison, and Mirza are excellent teachers who will challenge the locker room and each other, and we expect that they will help take us to new and higher levels. Along with Sean, we’re proud of this staff’s growth mindset, the positivity and focus they bring each day, and we look forward to their work with both individual players and the collective group.”

A native of Jerusalem, Israel, Miller spent the past four seasons with San Diego Loyal in the USL Championship, including succeeding American soccer legend Landon Donovan as head coach. He took the Loyal to a 16-9-9 record and third place in the Wester Conference en route to last year’s USL Championship quarterfinals before the club opted to disband as new MLS side San Diego FC prepares to launch.

“My four years in San Diego were awesome, we enjoyed a lot of success, it was such an amazing experience,” Miller said. “Obviously, the very sad news of the Loyal folding had a long lead-up time, left us a lot of time to consider next steps.

“I’ve always heard amazing things about Pablo (Mastroeni); now I am here, working for a manager I’ve long respected and a Club that I’ve always admired from a developmental standpoint. Observing and now experiencing a bit of what the culture of this Club would be like, I made the decision to move here.”

Pulis arrives in Utah with nearly 200 games of experience as a head coach domestically. The English-born Welsh youth international is the son of recently retired Premier League manager Tony Pulis, who most recently managed Stoke, Crystal Palace and West Brom during a three-decade career.

The younger Pulis, 39, won two USL Pro regular-season titles and a league championship in 2013 with Orlando City before the club’s 2015 MLS expansion season, when he signed on as an assistant and eventually took the reins of developmental side Orlando City B in 2016.

Pulis joined Inter Miami’s coaching staff in 2020 to work wtih Diego Alonso and Phil Neville, and was also the head coach of the now-defunct Saint Louis FC in the USL Championship for just over two years — including Saint Louis’ 2019 Open Cup run that included wins over the Chicago Fire and FC Cincinnati en route to the quarterfinals.

He most recently coached Miami FC since late 2021, leading a team that tied for the league-high in shutouts with 17, as well as the longest road winning streak in USL Championship in 2022.

“We will put process in place – organization, structure, clarity of purpose, built on collaboration with a spirit of positive challenges – those are the things that we control. Developing players, establishing a style of play, creating a way of work with a player-centric approach,” Pulis said. “We are here to serve the players, make them the best they can be, but its always about a TEAM framework, over the individual.”

Olave, 42, returns to Real Salt Lake where he starred at center back from 2009-12 and again from 2015-2016. The towering 6-foot-3 defender has been with the club’s second-team Real Monarchs since 2017, including the past four years as head coach in the now-MLS NEXT Pro developmental league.

The veteran of 216 MLS matches with Salt Lake and the New York Red Bulls, scoring 17 goals with four assists during his decade-long career, also brings 123 matches with 124 different players of experience as the No. 1 shot caller across several leagues. The Colombian bruiser was interim manager for the Monarchs’ USL Championship title appearance in Louisville in 2019

“After being with the RSL family for so so long — more than 15 years now — playing and then coaching, I’m excited to get to the first team as a coach,” Olave said. “The opportunity is there for me to grow, and I’m sure it will be a very smooth transition — these are great people and great coaches, all of us will always do our best for the Club.”

Harambasic also joins RSL from the Monarchs, where the Bosnia-born goalkeeper coach has been entrenched since 2020 prior to a one year spent with the RSL Academy. A recent recipient of his UEFA B license (to go along with his USSF A license) last year, Harambasic mentored RSL goalkeepers Gavin Beavers, Fernando Delgado, Blake Kelly, Christian Olivares, Jeff Dewsnup and David Ochoa, among others, to create a standard of goalkeeping since the retirement of club legend Nick Rimando.

“For me, this move is a culmination of hard work — I’ve long been anxious to get going and coach at this level,” Harambasic said. “I have so many feelings but mostly just gratitude to the Club for believing in me. During my time in Utah, I’ve worn a lot of hats, been involved with every single team. This shows that they value me, and for that I am very thankful.”

Buckley spent the past two years at Minnesota United FC as strength and conditioning coach following the Arizona native’s move back to the west. Since earning a degree in sports science from Arizona State in 1994 and a master’s from Kansas in 1995, the 52-year-old Buckley has spent time as strength and conditioning coach with Cruz Azul in Liga MX, as well as UNAM Pumas, Lobos BUAP, AEK Larnaca (Cyprus) and Mazatlan FC. He’s also fluent in Spanish, with significant time spent in Mexico.