The Salt is a recurring column focused on opinion and analysis on the latest Real Salt Lake news from RSL Soapbox managing editor Matt Montgomery.
There was a time not too long ago when Pablo Ruiz was an out-of-contention figure at Real Salt Lake. He’d been played at left back, at winger, and rarely in the midfield. He wasn’t anything near what the scouts at Manchester United would have been expecting (they would have expected the coach to play him, I suspect), and he had a bit of a slide from there.
We’d landed who we expected to be an exciting player, a creative player, a valuable player — and instead of playing him, we sent him on loan to FC Pinzgau Saalfelden, who were playing in the Austrian third division at the time.