Horwath undergoes surgery and what that means for Real Salt Lake

RSL backup goalkeeper Alex Horwath out for the rest of the season, where does that leave RSL?

Real Salt Lake announced earlier today that backup goalkeeper Alex Horwath has undergone surgery on his achilles injury. The surgery was successful but Horwath is expected to be out of play for the rest of the season. The surgery was performed by Dr. Andrew Cooper who said, “Alex’s surgery went really well. It was a full rupture, so we will be a little slower on the front end and they tend to be about six-month recoveries.”

Though this injury is devastating to Alex, it’s not the end of the world for Real Salt Lake. This could potentially be really good for Real Monarchs goalkeeper Connor Sparrow, since he is signed to a first team contract with RSL. It is assumed that he will naturally become the back-up to Rimando like it was expected at the beginning of the year, prior to signing Horwath. There is no doubt that Sparrow will make a great replacement to Horwath, but this could potentially mean someone else gets a chance with the Real Monarchs as well.

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Sparrow, who has played two games for the Monarchs in 2018 similarly to Andrew Putna will likely get called up to be the backup for RSL. However, this leaves one less goalkeeper to compete with for playing time in the USL. With just Putna and Jake Leeker left for the Monarchs, it is likely that Putna will receive more minutes of USL play. In the long run, this could be valuable for Real Salt Lake as well.

It will be interesting in the weeks to come to see how the Real Monarchs adapt to no longer having Sparrow. Sparrow, in his 2 matches, has come away with 2 clean sheets.

We hope Horwath is able to return to playing as soon as possible. The best to him throughout these next few months as he tried to recover from this devastating injury.