Real Salt Lake to kick off CCL at home in August

After winning last year's MLS Cup and qualifying for the CONCACAF Champions League, Real Salt Lake always knew a hectic schedule awaited in August, September and October with six additional games.

Today, that schedule became a little clearer.

CONCACAF announced the dates for two of the six group games in the regional club competition, and RSL will kick things off at Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday, Aug. 18, against Panama champion Arabe Unido at 8 p.m.

After a bye from league competition that weekend, it will travel to either Mexico City or Panama City for its second group game on Wednesday, Aug. 24. The exact opponent is based upon results of the preliminary round of competition.

"We are thrilled to learn our CONCACAF slate and we consider this to be our World cup," said RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey in a press release statement. "When Real Salt Lake was founded in 2004, part of the franchise's promise was to further integrate Utah into the global community and make it a gateway to the world. ... The CONCACAF Champions League is a major step in raising the profile of RSL on a regional level. We hope our fans support us in this 'Utah against the World' endeavor."

Last year's title earned RSL a bye into the group stages of the competition, and it was placed in Group A along with Arabe Unido. The other two teams will be determined in the two-leg preliminary rounds. San Francisco (Panama) will face Cruz Azul (Mexico) to determine one berth, with the other belonging to the winner of Toronto FC (Canada) and Motagua (Honduras).

Group play is a round robin format, with the top two teams advancing to the knockout stages. In all, 24 teams qualify for the competition, but eight will be eliminated in the preliminary round of competition.

The exact dates of RSL's other four group games haven't been announced yet, but they'll fall within the following date windows: Sept. 14-16, Sept. 21-23, Sept. 28-30 and Oct. 19-21.

Fellow MLS squad Columbus earned a bye into Group B by winning last year's Supporter's Shield for the best regular season record. The L.A. Galaxy and Seattle Sounders qualified for the preliminary round as MLS Cup runner-up and U.S. Open Cup champs, respectively.

Real Salt Lake is in the midst of a 10-game unbeaten streak in MLS competition, however, things will be much tougher once CCL play gets under way.

Even though they're fortunate to have a bye leading up to the Aug. 24 match in either Mexico or Panama, fatigue will be a major issue three days later when the team travels to Toronto FC for a league game nearly 3,000 miles away.

All CCL games are part of Real Salt Lake's season ticket package, but individual tickets go on sale to the general public on Saturday at 10 a.m. at riotintostadium.com.

e-mail: jedward@desnews.com