Game #114- Real Salt Lake vs Club Tigres
America First Field
August 4, 2026
Work trip again, and it lined up with another game on my list. We had a Plan Of Action (POA) conference in Salt Lake City so I once again took advantage of the free flight and hotel to knock out my 20th MLS game.
I was staying at the Grand American Hotel in the heart of the city (this place was beautiful; I’ll have to look up how much rooms are here because I bet it was a pretty penny. I was also upgraded to an executive suite which didn’t suck). Because our work event/dinner started at 6pm and I wanted to grab food and a few drinks before heading to the game I needed to hop in a Lyft to get to the pitch. But I later found out the trolley went to America First Stadium and I would have saved $20 taking that vs a car.
I arrived about ten minutes before the game where a snapped a few pics from the outside of the stadium which is not very impressive from the street. I also took this time to hit up the ticket office where they were able to print me a hard ticket which was nice before heading inside.
I took a lap around the concourse and although there were some painted murals and a small corridor where the concessions stands were located with some flags, I didn’t see anything impressive about the place. No fan experiences, no player jerseys, pictures of the team, nothing! You also can’t walk around the whole stadium, you eventually hit a barrier and need to backtrack to get to the other side. I hate places like that, makes it difficult on the fans. I did later see there is a grassy area in front of the main entrance which had a playground, and some food carts, but again nothing impressive. Even the weather/sky wasn’t cooperating. I was hoping to get some amazing pictures of the stadium surrounded by the local mountains but there seemed to be smoke in the air. So I completely struck out on atmosphere.
I made my way to the seat I bought that morning and quickly realized that not only were there a lot of seats still open. It was only a few minutes later I realized I could go onto the seat geek app and see exactly which seats weren’t sold. Normally this doesn’t help much, but America First didn’t have a single usher looking at your tickets. That was unreal, so I just moved over a few sections and grabbed a great seat on the aisle. The only other thing I will mention about the stadium is the size. It looks big from the outside, but it was tiny inside. Only about 16k were in attendance, it only had a small upper deck on one end, and they had temporary stands in the corners. Odd to say the least.
As for the game, because it was a leagues cup match, the one person on RSL that I know of Diego Luna did not start. The match marked the first of three games against Liga MX teams in the next week, and I think that contributed to the low attendance. The opposition found the net first in the sixth minute, as Tigres’ Rodrigo Aguirre got behind the RSL backline, sending the ball to Juan Brunetta, who scored with a left-footed shot from the center of the box. RSL quickly tied the game in the 16th minute, when Guilavogui sent a right-footed attempt toward the goal that was blocked by Tigres defender Fernando Gorriarán. The block ricocheted the ball to Guilavogui, who passed back to Ruiz, the midfielder taking a shot and burying the chance into the bottom right corner of the net, finding an equalizer. The rest of the game was quite unexciting except for the fouls and chippy behavior by both teams, which included Tigres goalkeeper pretending to help up a RSL player off the ground and then flailing to the pitch pretending to get hurt which brought out the boo birds. The game ended in a tie but lead to a shoot out to determine the winner. In penalties, both teams converted their first five attempts, moving the shootout to sudden death. On Real Salt Lake’s sixth penalty attempt, Utah native Zach Booth was unable to find the back of the net, clanking his shot off the post. The Tigers then converted their penalty to secure the shootout victory. The Mexico fans went nuts, and the home team sulked out of the stadium.
I needed to get back to the hotel because it was going to be a long day, so I headed to the trolly which allowed me to take a few front of the stadium pics before grabbing the train home.
Some fun and funny highlights from the game. I noted the chant by the Tigres fans in the section above me screaming the same "Dale" cheer we use in San Diego…I’m guessing we borrowed it from the Mexican club. Second, when they were showing fans around the stadium you had both RSL and Mexico fans grabbing their jerseys and kissing them, but it was the Mormon boy that grabbed his shirt and kissed his name tag that made me laugh out loud (it’s the fact that he wasn’t pretending, we are in the Mormon capitol of the world). The supporter’s section is nothing like SDFC, they rarely played the drums and had no chants. It was a random drum beat that lasted two minutes then dead quiet. I guess that’s why the dude in front of me with a jersey and name of “Hype Man” was able to start cheers in our section. He was loud, and people screamed with him, but that would be completely drowned out in San Diego. I told him he was the most exciting person in the stadium and grabbed a selfie. And finally, because the stadium was so small, the flood lights used for the field are horribly placed. They were almost directly in front of us and would have been blinding if I didn’t have a hat.
That’s it, knocked out my 114th game and only 11 more MLS teams to go on my current list.
