Herriman • On a pleasant morning at the base of the Oquirrh Mountains, student-athletes at Real Salt Lake Academy sprinted laps and fired shots on goal as coaches barked instructions and blew whistles from across the turf.
It’s a familiar routine for the athletes here: wake up, train, attend classes, practice again and repeat.
Since opening its doors in 2017, the RSL academy has become a pipeline for professional talent, producing players like RSL starter Zavier Gozo and striker Axel Kei, who signed a pro contract at age 14.
The $78 million, 42-acre facility was the vision of former — and embattled — Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen, who unveiled plans for the academy in 2016 to develop homegrown stars and elevate the club’s future.
“We’re looking for that Herriman Messi,” Hansen said confidently in 2016. “If I can recruit one Messi in 10 years, it’s probably worth the money.”
It was an audacious statement.
And, yet, that dream is still alive on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley.
Perhaps, it could even be coming closer to a reality.
The RSL academy’s under-16 team won a double cup championship in June. The U-16 side became the first club in MLS NEXT, a youth soccer league in the United States and Canada managed and organized by the MLS, to win the Generation adidas Cup and MLS NEXT Cup in the same year.
“The idea of a Herriman Messi, someone that can impact football globally,” RSL U-16 head coach Jordan Allen said, “that’s always at the foundation of what we want to do.
“I think we’re making steps, especially here in Utah, spending more of our efforts developing the young kids here to one day represent our club at the highest level.”
A culture of development
If you ask Anders Theurer, he’ll tell you that Wednesdays are always the most brutal practice days at the academy.
“It’s always the hardest load,” Theurer, the captain of the RSL U-16 team, said. “It has the most running and the longest practices.”
One Wednesday morning this season, however, Allen decided to cancel a routine because of his team’s lackadaisical effort.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) RSL Academy in Herriman is integral to the organization and what people involved in it say would be the impact of losing it in an ownership change.
“We were pretty tired and thought it was going to be pretty relaxed morning training session for maybe 45 minutes on the field,“ Theurer said of the morning practice. ”No one was really using their voice loud. Everyone was kind of slow."
Allen’s decision to end the practice early sent a message to his team.
And the RSL academy team responded with an even harder workout in the afternoon.
“It sparked a fire in all of us,” Theurer said. “It was so intense. ... It set the standard for the rest of the season.”
Allen and RSL assistant general manager Tony Beltran say development on the field is just one piece of the puzzle in the academy.
It’s about striving for excellence in citizenship, academics and, of course, soccer. Many of the athletes come from places all across the nation to work on their craft.
Students arrive at the field at 7 a.m. every day to begin practices. They then go to school for several hours before returning to the field for another training session in the afternoon.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) RSL Academy in Herriman is integral to the organization and what people involved in it say would be the impact of losing it in an ownership change.
They’re given dorms to sleep in and tutors to help with homework. But many of the students are making sacrifices that the average teenager isn’t asked to make.
“There’s a lot that goes into it for us,” Allen said. “We have to manage that and to try to help them through it. We have to remember that these are young men making tremendous sacrifices, missing out on seeing their brother or sister, going through different personality changes and having the support of their parents around them. We take that really seriously. We think about it constantly. We talk about it almost daily.”
Winning the double championships this season was a sign of that dedication is paying off at the RSL academy.
Real Salt Lake now hopes they can turn players on their U-16 team into future starters on the front line at America First Field.
“[It] shows the progression of our design,” Beltran said.
“Where we’ve found success historically ... [is not] acquiring, the big stars of today, it’s about developing the stars of tomorrow.”
Could RSL academy land players in Europe?
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Tony Beltran holds his son Kaito as he is honored at half time of the match between Real Salt Lake and Houston Dynamo at Rio Tinto Stadium, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019.
Beltran can still vividly remember dreaming of playing for a European soccer club as a teenager.
He’d often sit in front of his TV, watching his favorite soccer stars at Arsenal in the English Premier League on Saturday and Sunday mornings, hoping one day he could achieve a similar feat.
Beltran, ultimately, ended up playing for RSL in MLS before retiring in 2019. Now he helps oversee and develop players in the Real Salt Lake academy with similar aspirations.
Does he think the RSL academy can produce truly elite players?
“Playing for the RSL first team and running out of the tent the tunnel at American First Field and playing in Europe — at any club there — that’s a shared objective,” Beltran said.
“We believe that our player pathway, whatever the entry point is, is going to help accomplish that and catapult those players forward to the next step on that journey. ... We believe that is productive through our pipeline.”
Over the years, a few RSL youth players have had international success.
Center back Carlos Salcedo took a path that has seen him play in top leagues in Italy and Germany. Sebastian Saucedo, a winger from Park City, has made a career in Mexico.
Taylor Booth, a former RSL U-16 standout from Eden, and his brother Zach currently play in the Dutch Eredivisie.
“I give RSL a lot of credit for helping me with my youth development,” Booth said when he signed his pro contract with Bayern Munich, one of Germany’s best clubs, at the age of 16. “They are definitely one of the best academies in the U.S., if not the best. They continue to develop top players every year. So they deserve the respect they have.”
And at America First Field, Gozo, an 18-year-old who grew up in West Valley City, has scored twice in 16 appearances for Real Salt Lake this season.
It’s a long way from Lionel Messi.
But the athletes at RSL’s academy keep their expectations high.
Is RSL really getting closer to finding its very own “Herriman Messi?”
“I think I can look at that and be like, ‘Yeah, I think that’s possible,’” Theurer said. “I think a lot can happen in the next years.”
