Real Salt Lake is a professional soccer team in the United States. Soccer is called football in much of the world. Real Salt Lake, also called RSL, competes in the Western Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top soccer league in the United States and Canada. The team plays its home games at America First Field in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. Real (pronounced ray AHL) is Spanish for royal. Real Salt Lake was named after Real Madrid, one of Spain’s top soccer clubs.
Real Salt Lake joined MLS in 2005. In the club’s first MLS Cup Playoffs appearance, in 2008, it lost in the conference finals. In 2009, RSL won its first championship by defeating the LA Galaxy in the MLS Cup final. Salt Lake returned to the MLS Cup final in 2013, but lost to Sporting Kansas City.
In 2010, Salt Lake advanced to the finals of the CONCACAF Champions League. CONCACAF stands for Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football, and the league is an annual tournament among that region’s best professional clubs.
