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To no one's surprise, it will be Mike Petke.

Real Salt Lake will introduce Petke as its new coach Wednesday afternoon at a news conference at Rio Tinto Stadium a little more than a week after firing Jeff Cassar, according to league sources.

The hire was first reported by FourFourTwo's Paul Tenorio and Sirius XM's Cristiano Oliveria on Tuesday night. RSL, through a club spokesman, offered no comment Tuesday evening.

The move to tab Petke as the fourth coach in club history isn't a total stunner. The former New York Red Bulls coach, who led the club to back-to-back Eastern Conference final appearances in 2013 and 2014, was hired to coach RSL's USL affiliate, Real Monarchs, this offseason.

Petke became a logical choice to take over once owner Dell Loy Hansen and general manager Craig Waibel decided to fire Cassar three games into 2017. The 41-year-old from Long Island, N.Y., was out of coaching for two years after he was dismissed suddenly in January 2015. Petke coached the Monarchs to a 2-1 win over Portland Timbers 2 in his Monarchs debut Saturday night in Portland, Ore..

When asked last week if he expected his name to be in the mix for the RSL coaching position, Petke said, "I'm the Monarchs coach and that's what I'm focusing on."

Cassar said the day he was dismissed as RSL's coach that he didn't feel as if the Petke hiring at the Monarchs was designed to put pressure on him entering his fourth year as the club's manager.

"In anything that I've ever done at RSL, it was never for what was better for me, it was what was best for the organization," Cassar said last week. "Hiring Mike is a fantastic move."

Both Waibel and Hansen recently said RSL had no intention of dragging out the process of hiring the fourth coach in franchise history.

The search, it appears, took eight days.

"The most important thing for us right now is to get this next decision correct and all of our energy and all of our effort will be put into doing exactly that," Waibel said last week during a conference call with reporters. "I will tell you that the sense of urgency to move forward is definitely something we are taking into consideration."

It seems he didn't have to wander too far to find his next coach.

Petke led the Red Bulls to their lone major trophy as a franchise when New York hoisted the 2013 Supporters' Shield in his first season as coach. Petke coached such names as Thierry Henry, Tim Cahill, Dax McCarty, Bradley Wright-Phillips and former RSL players Fabian Espindola and Jamison Olave.

His firing two years ago brought serious backlash from the Red Bull supporters. Fans chastised former sporting director Ali Curtis at a town hall after Petke was let go, hurling obscenities during the discussion. The Red Bulls went 30-19-19 in two seasons under Petke.

"The fans loved Mike," former RSL and New York assistant coach Robin Fraser told The Toronto Sun after Petke's firing. "For them, it was like one of them taking their team and doing well with it."

Now it's up to Petke to revitalize an RSL team adrift. At 0-2-2, RSL has one goal in four matches and hasn't won a game since last August. Petke made 307 career appearances for four different clubs as a defender in MLS for 14 seasons.

His much-awaited return to the coaching ranks already has a twist four months in.

"As much as I missed it, I didn't want to just jump into any opportunity," he said last week. "And I had a couple of opportunities, and they just didn't feel right at the end of the day."

Twitter: @chriskamrani