RSL call up Zavier Gozo, Griffon Dillon, Axel Kei for road match at LA Galaxy due to hardship
RSL call up Zavier Gozo, Griffon Dillon, Axel Kei for road match at LA Galaxy due to hardship
The Real Monarchs duo will make their season debut with the first team Saturday in Los Angeles (8:30 p.m. MT, MLS Season Pass).
Real Salt Lake is tapping reinforcements for the final stretch of the 2023 MLS regular season.
With a number of players out injured, suspended or away on the FIFA-designated international break, the club has received permission to call up Zavier Gozo and Griffon Dillon, as well as recall Axel Kei for Saturday’s match at the LA Galaxy under Major League Soccer’s “extreme hardship” roster mechanism.
The Real Monarchs duo will make their season debut with the first team Saturday in Los Angeles (8:30 p.m. MT, MLS Season Pass). Both players trained with RSL this week, including a full training session Friday morning before the club departed for Los Angeles.
Gozo made 10 appearances for Real Monarchs in MLS Next Pro play in 2023, including seven starts, totaling 636 minutes with one goal.
The 16-year-old Utah native who grew up in Eagle Mountain signed a professional contract with Real Monarchs last December after starring with the RSL Academy. Gozo established himself as a prolific goal scorer, finding the back of the net 16 times in his first season with the academy with multiple goals in the Generation Adidas Cup and MLS NEXT Cup tournaments.
Gozo led RSL’s U-15 to its second consecutive MLS NEXT Cup final appearance, where he was awarded the 2022 tournament’s Golden Boot with five goals prior to turning pro and going on to represent RSL in the 2023 MLS NEXT All-Star Game this past summer. His older brother Elijah, another Utah native who prepped at Westlake High, plays for former RSL legend Kyle Beckerman at Utah Valley University.
Dillon, versatile playmaker and two-way midfielder, joined the Monarchs this eyar after two seasons at the University of Maryland. The 20-year-old Corner Canyon High product made seven appearances with a then-USL side Monarchs as member of the RSL Academy during his senior year of high school, and made 24 appearances in MLS NEXT Pro play this past year.
Kei, 15, signed a Homegrown contract with RSL in 2022, when he was the youngest player in MLS history to sign a pro deal. The 6-foot-1 forward played in six games with the Monarchs in MLS NEXT Pro play in 2023, including five starts, this past year and has four goals and four assists in 19 matches across two seasons.
That goal — hilariously marked “Lastname” by the MLS Next Pro broadcast on Apple TV — helped Real Monarchs earned a 1-0 road win over LAFC2 back on Aug. 26.
Still in play for a top-four seed in the MLS Cup playoffs that would clinch home-field advantage for at least one full round, RSL is currently 13-12-7 with 46 points and sixth in the Western Conference with two games remaining.
RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni is the only active head coach in MLS’s Western Conference to lead his side to three consecutive playoff appearances as Salt Lake enters the final 14 days of the regular season as part of a five-team logjam of teams ranked second through sixth in the West, a mere four-point separation.
The Galaxy (8-13-11) have been eliminated from playoff contention after last week’s 5-2 loss to Minnesota United, and currently sit at 13th in the West under head coach Greg Vanney.
The club, which is a Western Conference-best 7-5-3 on the roade in MLS play, will be without four players due to international duty (FW Jefferson Savarino, Venezuela; MF Braian Ojeda, Paraguay; FW Rubio Rubin, Guatemala; and D/MF Kevon Lambert, Jamaica); as well as two players who have worn the captain’s armband in recent weeks in forward Chicho Arango (hamstring) and defender Justen Glad (suspension).
Arango will not travel with the club to Los Angeles, while fellow forward Danny Musovski remains questionable with an ongoing quad contusion. Goalkeeper Gavin Beavers (groin) also remains unavailable, along with long-term injured players Erik Holt (shoulder) and Pablo Ruiz (knee).
Under league rules, MLS clubs may add players to their roster in cases of “extreme hardship,” meaning a club has fewer than 16 outfield players available or fewer than two goalkeepers. The rule allows clubs to sign such players on loan to short-term agreements (up to four-day contracts).