Eric Quill has urged his FC Dallas side to be honest with themselves following a humbling 5-0 loss to San Diego FC last weekend.

Dallas were undone early at Snapdragon Stadium, with Hirving Lozano netting twice in the first half. Things only got worse after the break, as Anders Dreyer, Onni Valakari, and Milan Iloski added to the scoreline in a dominant second-half display.

It was a sobering comedown for Quill’s team, who had been flying high after a dramatic comeback win over Inter Miami just a week earlier. That momentum, however, quickly evaporated in San Diego.

With 15 points to their name, Dallas are now ninth in the Western Conference standings, just one point outside the top seven with Colorado Rapids, Seattle Sounders, and Austin FC all on 16 points.

Speaking after the loss, Quill was critical of his side’s attacking performance and called for honesty in reflection.

“Our final third play was poor. When we had chances to punish early on in the game, we didn’t. Clear chances like that have to be put away,” Quill said.

“A team like San Diego, credit to them, once they got the goal, it gave them a little bit of belief and confidence and took out all of our belief and confidence.

"I said [to the team]: We have to take this and be honest with it and turn ourselves around, because we’ve got a game on Wednesday and a game on Saturday, so we can’t feel sorry for ourselves.

“We’ve got to call it what it is  and be upset about it. And it can’t happen again. This is unacceptable, this turn of events, the way this game went.”

Quill added that his side might have lost their focus: “We got humbled, you know, I think we felt good about ourselves from last week, and we just lost focus for a moment, and it changed the game.

“But we’ve got a lot of football left to play this season. Now we’ve just got to take it and be honest.”

Real Salt Lake, meanwhile, travel to Toyota Stadium for Saturday’s clash on the back of a 2-1 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Jayden Nelson and Tristan Blackmon scored either side of the break, while Diego Luna could only a consolation goal in stoppage-time.

Despite the loss, head coach Pablo Mastroeni found positives in the performance of youngster Xavier Gozo.

“I think Gozo is doing all the right things. Having his speed on the field makes us a little more dynamic in the attack.

“He stretched their back line well, his one-v-ones going at the defender created quite a few good crossing opportunities, especially the one where he played it back post to [Alexandros Katranis] in the first half – that was really good.”

RSL are currently 11th in the Western Conference standings, three points behind Dallas.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

FC Dallas – Luciano Acosta

Despite a poor showing against San Diego, Quill can take heart from another encouraging display from Lucho Acosta, who has found the net three times this season.

The veteran midfielder took two shots, had three touches in the box and four final-third entries against San Diego at an individual expected goals value of 0.11 – higher than any other Dallas player.

Real Salt Lake – Diego Luna

Diego Luna’s goal for Real Salt Lake on Saturday was his sixth of the season and 14th since the start of last season.

Luna’s six goals this season are tied with Brian White for the most by an American in MLS this year, while his 14 since the start of last year ranks fourth among Americans in MLS in that time.

MATCH PREDICTION: DALLAS WIN

Dallas have lost only two of 25 all-time home matches against Real Salt Lake in all competitions (W16 D7). Five of the seven meetings at Toyota Stadium since 2018 have ended in draws, with each team winning once.

But the hosts will certainly still be hurting from their 5-0 loss to San Diego, which equalled the second-largest margin of defeat in club history and was its first five-goal loss since a 5-0 defeat at Seattle in 2016. Dallas’ only larger margin of defeat was an 8-1 loss to LA Galaxy back in 1998.

Real Salt Lake, meanwhile, have lost seven of their first 11 matches of a season for just the second time in club history (seven in 2017). RSL won 2-1 at Houston in March – the club’s seventh all-time win in Texas (54 games), though they’ve never won twice in the Lone Star State in a single season before.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

FC Dallas – 43.4%

Draw – 26.7%

Real Salt Lake – 29.9%