‘It’s time to come home’: Taylor Booth returns to RSL looking for fresh start

HERRIMAN — For years, whenever Taylor Booth came home to Utah, he heard the same thing.

“It’s time to come home. It’s time to come home.”

Booth always believed he would. He just didn’t know when.

Nearly eight years after leaving Real Salt Lake’s academy to pursue a career in Europe, the 25-year-old Eden native walked onto the training field in Herriman Thursday wearing RSL colors again.

“It feels surreal to be back,” Booth said after his first training session. “I couldn’t be happier, to be honest. It’s an opportunity that I had to take at this point in my career, and so to be back home and to be back with RSL, it’s a special feeling for me.”

Booth’s return comes at a crossroads in a career that took him from RSL’s academy to Bayern Munich, the Eredivisie, the U.S. men’s national team and the 2024 Paris Olympics.

At his best with FC Utrecht, Booth looked like another young American climbing Europe’s soccer ladder. Injuries interrupted that trajectory over the last two seasons, and consistent playing time became increasingly difficult to find after his February 2025 move to FC Twente.

For the first time Thursday, Booth described what those seasons had taken from him.

“I’ve had a hard last two years with some injuries I’ve been dealing with, and I kinda just lost a little bit of the love for the game,” Booth said. “I think it was the perfect opportunity for me to come back and, you know, enjoy football again, play with a smile on my face and have so many good people around me.”

Being injured while thousands of miles from home took a toll.

“When you’re away from family and you’re away from the game for so long, it’s just really hard mentally and physically,” Booth said. “And then to do it two seasons in a row was something that was just very difficult for me.

“I think this is the perfect little reset for me in my career.”

RSL isn’t planning to rush that reset. Head coach Pablo Mastroeni said Friday the staff expects Booth to need some time before he’s ready to return to competitive action.

“I think the first part is not throwing him in the deep water just because we have him, given his history,” Mastroeni said. “I think the most important thing is, to play with joy, you’ve gotta feel good about where your body’s at.

“The next couple of weeks will be a ramp-up, a slow ramp-up, to put him in the best position so that he can show his best self.”

“It’s been something I always knew was going to happen” pic.twitter.com/q6bZJyQwHo

— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) September 4, 2026

A homecoming years in the making

The deal came together near the end of the summer transfer window, but RSL’s interest in bringing Booth back wasn’t new.

Chief Soccer Officer Kurt Schmid said the club had been in contact with Booth’s representatives for at least 18 months, dating to before his move from Utrecht to Twente.

“We’ve sort of kept in touch with his representatives for a while,” Schmid said. “I think it’s been maybe 18 or more months or so, even before he moved to Twente, about what the opportunity could look like coming here.”

RSL considered Booth during multiple transfer windows, Schmid said, but had to find the right combination of roster fit, deal structure and finances.

“It’s something that we’ve just been keeping in mind for a couple windows now,” Schmid said, “and it lined up this one to make it work.”

RSL acquired Booth on loan from Twente through the remainder of the 2026 season and the 2027 MLS Sprint Season, with an option to purchase.

The interest was mutual.

“RSL’s always a club I knew I wanted to come back and play for at some point in my career,” Booth said. “I didn’t really know when it was gonna happen.”

When it finally did, Booth called the decision a “gut feeling.”

“It felt right to me.”

Booth had also watched from afar as RSL defied the expectations placed on it under Mastroeni.

“You always see the predictions at the start of the year of where teams are gonna finish,” Booth said. “People always predict RSL to not make playoffs or finish low in the table, and RSL continues every year to prove those people wrong.

“It just testifies to what Pablo’s doing with this club. It’s a special place to be.”

Where does Booth fit?

Booth left RSL’s academy for Bayern Munich in 2019 as a highly regarded holding midfielder, but his position evolved in Europe.

“I grew up my whole youth, all youth national teams, playing as a 6, 8, more centrally,” Booth said. “And then once I moved to Europe, it’s kind of a trend for young players to break into first teams to kind of be pushed out wide.”

Booth found success on the wing at Utrecht, but said Thursday his preferred position remains central.

“I definitely prefer to play centrally,” Booth said. “It’s where I’m most comfortable. My favorite is to play at the 8, 10, kind of box-to-box midfielder.”

Booth believes he can bring another element to RSL’s attack.

“I’m a player that can add some creativity into the team,” he said. “I like to do unpredictable things on the pitch and add some creativity into the attack while still working hard for the team.”

Mastroeni also sees Booth in the middle of the field.

“I think just given where he’s played recently, I would say one of the 10s,” Mastroeni said. “But internally, we’ve had conversations that he can play as a pivot. And so I think either of those positions could suit us.

“It’d be a central position; it wouldn’t be a wide position.”

The Booth brothers, together at last

Taylor isn’t the only Booth to make his way home from the Netherlands this year.

Younger brother Zach joined RSL on loan from Excelsior in January, and Taylor spoke with him before deciding whether joining the same team was the right move.

“We didn’t want to get in each other’s way and stuff like that,” Taylor said. “But no, I sat down with Zach and he was super open about the opportunity. He was super excited.”

Zach had spent eight months inside the club and gave Taylor an assessment he couldn’t get from watching RSL from Europe.

“I told him he’ll be welcome with open arms coming back home,” Zach said Wednesday. “We have a great team environment. Our locker room is great. The coaches, the style of play I think will fit him well.”

The brothers have already shared a professional field, just never on the same side.

Zach scored first for FC Volendam against Utrecht in February 2024, briefly giving the younger Booth bragging rights.

“I thought I had him in the first half of that game,” Zach said Wednesday. “Scoring the first goal, my hope was super high.”

Taylor responded with a hat trick in Utrecht’s 4-2 win.

“I was stunned,” Taylor said. “I was like, ‘Okay, the pressure’s on me now.’ Responded pretty well, I would say, with a hat trick.”

Zach went to Taylor’s house after the match, where the older brother made sure the result wasn’t forgotten.

“I literally went to his house after the game, and it was more of, like, fun trash talk,” Zach said. “It wasn’t anything personal, but it was a fun day.”

Taylor still ranks it among his greatest achievements.

“I think that might be probably the peak of my life, that game,” he said before quickly correcting himself. “My wedding was first. My wedding was first, but that day was probably second.”

Now they have a chance to share the field instead of competing for bragging rights.

“For me, it’s crazy to even think that we’re both here,” Taylor said. “We both are from a tiny town up in Eden, Utah. So for both of us to go professional is amazing.

“And so now to be playing on the same team and hopefully at some point to be playing on the same pitch, it’s a surreal feeling. I get goosebumps thinking about it.”

Booth’s focus for now is on staying healthy, playing well for RSL and rediscovering the enjoyment he lost during the last two injury-plagued seasons.

But his larger ambitions haven’t disappeared. Booth came through a loaded U.S. youth national-team generation alongside players such as Sergiño Dest before eventually reaching the senior national team himself.

“I hope I can come here, play well, stay fit and get back in the national team picture for sure,” Booth said.

Whenever Booth returned to Utah while playing overseas, he said friends and RSL supporters delivered the same message.

“It’s time to come home.”

This time, Booth listened.

“To finally be home, it feels good,” he said, “and I’m excited to play in front of all of them.”