Real Salt Lake vs Seattle Sounders

Rio Tinto Stadium is the venue as Real Salt Lake and Seattle Sounders go head-to-head in a tasty-looking MLS match-up.

Real Salt Lake experienced another slow start to the MLS season as they could only manage a disappointing scoreless draw away to Houston Dynamo on the opening weekend. Yet, last season’s beaten MLS Cup semi-finalists can draw confidence from their utterly outstanding H2H home record against a Seattle side they’ve defeated in nine of their previous ten MLS meetings at home (D1). Moreover, the Rio Tinto Stadium was somewhat a fortress last season, with the ‘Claret and Cobalt’ racking up a decent 76% unbeaten ratio in home MLS fixtures back in 2021 (W9, D4, L4). The Rio Tinto supporters were thoroughly entertained last season as 12 of Salt Lake’s 17 home league matches in the 2021 campaign saw both teams on the scoresheet.

Meanwhile, it has not been the best of starts for the two-time MLS Cup winners Seattle Sounders as they slumped to a 1-0 home defeat at the hands of Nashville FC on Matchday 1. The visitors will have revenge on their minds here, having seen Real Salt Lake halt their last season’s pursuit of MLS glory, courtesy of a penalty shoot-out win in the first play-off round. The ‘Sounders’ have now drawn a blank in each of their last two MLS encounters against Salt Lake (D1, L1), having netted 2+ goals in their four previous such fixtures beforehand. Scoring prowess was not Seattle’s strong suit on the road last season, with Brian Schmetzer’s men bagging under 1.5 goals in their final four MLS away matches of 2021.