Guess the Starting XI - Match 27 at Real Salt Lake

Welcome back everyone.

After a crucial home victory over the Colorado Rapids on Wednesday propelled by star midfielder Ryan Gauld, the Vancouver Whitecaps will be looking to keep their positive momentum rolling this weekend as they travel down to their former temporary home at Rio Tinto Stadium to take on Real Salt Lake.

Salt Lake currently sits 5th in the West on 37 points through 25 matches, so they have a good bit of wiggle room on the 7th place Whitecaps at the moment. However, if the Whitecaps are able to make a dent on the road it would go a long way to solidifying their playoff hopes.

Most recently, Salt Lake claimed a big 2-1 result against the Sounders at Lumen field, although prior to that, they dropped a 4-1 decision to league-leading LAFC at home, so their form has been mixed.

Zac MacMath will be a familiar face in goal to most Whitecaps supporters, while Vancouver will have to be alert to the Venezuelan duo of Sergio Cordova and Jefferson Savarino, who have done most of the attacking damage this season for RSL.

Photo by John Todd/ISI Photos/Getty Images

Digging through the numbers, Salt Lake is a pretty bang-on average MLS team in most statistical categories. Like Vancouver though, they don’t hold much of the ball (just 46% on average), so it will be interesting to see who takes the initiative in this one, especially if Seb Berhalter and Alessandro Schopf start again for Vancouver.

In terms of injuries for Vancouver, both Brian White and Javain Brown are currently listed as doubtful. I will update you if I hear more on that front.

Update, Brian White will make the trip but I would be very surprised to see him start in Salt Lake.

Ok, on to rules and standings:

• Predictions will be ‘valid’ if posted HERE (or more accurately, whichever is the correct match thread) before the lineup is officially announced, usually about an hour before kickoff.
• You receive 1 point for every player you correctly guess to be in the Starting XI. You receive 4 bonus points for correctly predicting all 11 starters.
• You get 5 points for correctly guessing Win/Lose/Draw, this doubles to 10 if you also predict the right score-line along with the result.
• All this means, if you correctly predict the Starting XI, Final Score, and Winner, you can earn 25 points!
• At the end of each half, the contestant’s lowest two scores of that period will be deducted from the cumulative standings.