Gozo’s Premier move: RSL celebrates a landmark transfer, but what comes next?

SANDY — Zavier Gozo used to wake up in Utah and watch Premier League highlights with his brother and his dad.

Now he gets a chance to make them.

Crystal Palace officially completed its long-awaited transfer of the 19-year-old Real Salt Lake academy product Tuesday, signing Gozo to a five-year contract and ending nearly two weeks of limbo surrounding the biggest outgoing transfer in RSL history.

“It’s crazy to think that I could be in those highlights!” Gozo told Palace TV.

The move sends Gozo from RSL to the Premier League just three years after he represented the club at the MLS NEXT All-Star Game.

Gozo joined RSL’s academy in 2021, progressed through Real Monarchs and made his MLS debut at 16 in October 2023.

Last season, he got his opportunity at right midfield when Dominic Marczuk left an early-season road match due to injury, then emerged as one of the league’s brightest young players.

This season, Gozo switched to a new position at right wingback and promptly earned a fan-voted spot in the MLS All-Star First XI after scoring six goals and adding five assists in league play.

RSL announced the deal as a club-record transfer but did not disclose the fee. BBC Sport reported the transfer at approximately $15 million. RSL will retain what the club described as a “significant percentage” of any future transfer fee for Gozo.

The move also makes Gozo the first Utah native to reach the Premier League and the first RSL academy product transferred directly to a Premier League club.

For Gozo, it fulfills a childhood ambition.

“I’m really looking forward to playing in the Premier League with Crystal Palace,” Gozo said. “It’s the dream of any footballer.

“I’m excited by the people and the project they have going on here. I’ve seen a lot of it, and that’s what excites me about this club as well: the success that they’ve had.”

DeAndre Yedlin knew the feeling before the deal was even complete.

The veteran RSL defender was 21 when the Seattle Sounders agreed to transfer him to Tottenham Hotspur in 2014. Two weeks ago, as the Palace rumors started heating up, Yedlin was asked how closely his young teammate’s experience resembled his own.

“Yeah, it’s crazy,” Yedlin said. “It’s very, very similar. Very similar.

“And I’m so happy for him. I don’t think it could happen to a better kid, honestly, and I know that it’s his dream to go over and play over there, as it was mine.”

For Yedlin, Gozo’s ability was almost secondary to the person making the move.

“I’m just so proud of him,” Yedlin said. “I think when you speak about Gozo, I don’t even think you think of the player first. I think you think of the human, which speaks a lot to him because he’s a fantastic player.

“So I have nothing but good things to say about him, and I also know that a kid with that kind of head on his shoulders will do great things over there.”

From the academy to the Premier League

Few coaches have had a closer view of Gozo’s rise than RSL assistant coach Jamal Campbell-Ryce.

Campbell-Ryce coached Gozo in the RSL Academy, worked with him as an assistant coach at Real Monarchs and followed him to the RSL first team when he was promoted to Pablo Mastroeni’s staff last offseason. The former Jamaican international also spent nearly two decades playing professionally in England.

Speaking after RSL’s Leagues Cup win over Atlante, on the condition that his comments not be published until Gozo’s transfer became official, Campbell-Ryce said the move should resonate throughout RSL’s academy.

“I feel like it should give everybody a massive vote of confidence,” Campbell-Ryce said. “I know as a club we speak about obviously wanting to promote the younger ones and stuff, and he’s a prime example.

“I’m actually on the phone with Phil Cousins as well. When we got here, we had Gozo in the 18s, had him in the Monarchs and now the first team. And now being bought for the money that he’s being bought for, it’s brilliant.”

Cousins, now a Real Monarchs assistant, previously coached in the RSL Academy, including as U18 head coach, after spending 17 years in various roles with Reading FC in England.

“For any youngster looking, he’s obviously the example that they all want to follow,” Campbell-Ryce said. “So whilst I’m devastated that we’re losing a top player, I’m also delighted for him because he’s a fantastic kid. He’s got loads to learn, but the ability he’s got, he’s gonna go and I’m sure he’s gonna set the Premier League alight.”

Gozo’s departure is the clearest example yet of the development pathway RSL has spent years building.

It also causes quite the conundrum.

What does RSL do now?

When Campbell-Ryce was asked how RSL could continue “winning together through development” after losing a cornerstone player like Gozo, the first player he mentioned was Zach Booth.

“Well, listen, I think we showed tonight,” Campbell-Ryce said. “We got somebody like Zach Booth just coming through. Not only him, we saw Luca Moisa at the beginning of the season. Aiden Hezarkhani is another one that’s contributed a lot this season, and for me, he’s one of the next top young ones.

“We’ve got Omar Marquez, Owen Anderson, so there’s a plethora of young ones coming through. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of time, and everybody’s path’s different.”

Booth had already begun making his case.

The 22-year-old scored against Atlante and appeared poised to receive an immediate opportunity in the spot vacated by Gozo.

Then Saturday night, 12 minutes into RSL’s first MLS match since Gozo left for England, Booth went down clutching his right hamstring.

He didn’t return.

After the match, a 1-1 draw with Minnesota United, Mastroeni estimated Booth would miss six to eight weeks, encompassing much of the remaining regular-season schedule.

Asked directly whether RSL now needed to go into the transfer market for another player, Mastroeni didn’t equivocate.

“Yes,” Mastroeni said. “Yes.”

“Dre is really the short-term option, obviously not available tonight. Again, I think, just putting it in perspective for me, when you don’t have Justen Glad, you don’t have Dre, you don’t have Gozo and you don’t have Morgan Guilavogui, these guys are fighting like dogs to really make up for the loss of those guys.

“So now that Zach’s out, now Dre needs to move out to that wingback position. Yeah, we need reinforcements.”

RSL has experienced the challenge of replacing a major attacking piece during the season before. Andrés Gómez left for Rennes during the summer of 2024, and the club’s attempt to replace his production wasn’t immediately successful.

Gozo eventually became the next attacking difference-maker.

This time, Booth had offered early signs that the transition might be smoother. 

“I think it’s more six to eight weeks,” Mastroeni said of Booth’s expected absence. “I mean, the majority of our games are in the next two months. So I think it’s a bit of a dire situation for us at the moment.

“I think that was always the concern. Zach hasn’t played a whole lot of minutes in the last five years, and now getting thrown in and how he uses his speed and the explosiveness in which he plays with was always a concern, at least in the back of my mind.

“Really unfortunate for the young man because he’s been doing great, but the expectation is that it’s gonna take some time before he gets back.”

This is the final full MLS season in which Europe’s summer transfer window will arrive directly in the middle of the league’s season. MLS will play a shortened transition season in 2027 before moving to a summer-to-spring calendar, aligning the league’s offseason with Europe’s primary summer transfer window.

For RSL, that means Gozo could be one of the last major players the club develops and sells to Europe while simultaneously trying to navigate the heart of an MLS season.

Real Salt Lake’s ethos is “Winning Together Through Development.”

The development part worked.

A Utah kid entered the academy, climbed through the Monarchs, became an MLS All-Star and earned a move to the Premier League.

Now RSL has to figure out the winning part.