Real Salt Lake working to schedule June 19 exhibition game

Real Salt Lake is "feverishly" working on scheduling an international opponent for an exhibition match at Rio Tinto Stadium on June 19. An official announcement could come in the next 24 hours.

With six CONCACAF Champions League matches awaiting RSL in August, September and October, coach Jason Kreis is hoping to expose his players to a team from the CONCACAF region as a tune-up match. With MLS taking a two-week break from the World Cup beginning this Wednesday, RSL will have an obvious break in its schedule.

RSL qualified for the CCL and received a bye into the group stages by winning last year's MLS Cup. It has been placed in Group A along with Panama champion Arabe Unide and two other teams to be determined during preliminary play. Those two other teams will be the San Francisco (Panama)/Cruz Azul (Mexico) winner and the Toronto FC (Canada)/Motagua (Honduras) winner.

Pachuca (Mexico) beat Cruz Azul in the championship round of the 2009-2010 Champions League. The 2010-2011 competition runs from August to April.

The winner of the annual CONCACAF Champions League qualifies for the FIFA Club World Cup. The 2011 Club World Cup will be held in December in Japan.

The FIFA Club World Cup was rebranded in 2005, and no MLS team has ever participated. Past champions are Sao Paulo (Brazil), Internacional (Brazil), AC Milan (Italy), Manchester United (England) and Barcelona (Spain).

Real Salt Lake has stated in the past couple years that it wants to be regarded as one of the elite teams in the region. Consistently competing for MLS Cup and the CONCACAF Champions League are a necessity to achieve that goal. Potentially playing the likes of Manchester United or Barcelona in a sanctioned FIFA tournament would be icing on the cake.