While there is no shortage of interest from overseas, Real Salt Lake, at the moment, isn’t particularly keen on selling.
Sources tell GOAL that the club is hoping to keep hold of Gozo at least through the rest of the MLS season. That logic is partly informed by what happened to the club in 2024. That summer, RSL sold Colombian attacker Andres Gomez to Stade Rennais midseason, only to lose in the first round of the playoffs against Minnesota United. The goal, then, is to keep this current group together, particularly after a strong start to the season that has the club sitting fourth in a wide-open Western Conference. The club’s new owners, Miller Sports + Entertainment, are also big fans of Gozo and fellow star Diego Luna and would ideally like to build around that duo going forward.
“To have Gozo is great, and when he goes and plays at a higher level, that’ll be fantastic for him,” RSL sporting director Kurt Schmid told the Salt Lake Tribune. “But as a club, our job is to make sure that when he does that, we have the next Gozo or the next whoever that is coming behind them so that we can continue to develop players. And that’s not an easy thing to do.”
The sale of Gomez yielded a club record fee of around $11 million initially, with an additional $2 million in bonuses. It would take significantly more than that for RSL to part with Gozo. Last year, Gozo was on the radar of Anderlecht, Copenhagen and FC Midtjylland for a fee of around $4-5 million. Then, as he continued to break out, Aston Villa came in at around the $8 million range. Sources told GOAL in February that, at that time, RSL were looking for somewhere between the $10-13 million mark for Gozo that would at least put the teenager close to being a club-record sale. That fee has gone up.
Now, sources say that RSL would require a number closing in on $20 million to sell the homegrown star, which could price the winger out of a move altogether this summer. An offer in the seven-figure range likely wouldn’t even be countered by RSL. There are few clubs in the world capable of spending eight figures on an MLS-based teenager with under 50 games of top-flight experience, though.
Only three MLS players have been sold in the $20 million range: Miguel Almiron, Thiago Almada and Ricardo Pepi. Brenden Aaronson, for comparison, signed with RB Salzburg for a $6.5 million fee, while Daryl Dike commanded $9.5 million from West Brom in 2022. Just this past winter, Charlotte FC sold USMNT striker Patrick Agyemang for around $8 million, but that could rise to $10 million based on add-ons.
Sources tell GOAL that the pricetag could become a significant hurdle for Gozo, who does wish to continue his development in Europe. He’s already taking steps towards making that happen, too.