HERRIMAN — The feeling was unanimous, and oftentimes as Real Salt Lake players shuttled through the fitness run, the mental hurdles and the jitters of the first day of training camp Monday at Zions Bank Real Academy, the feeling turned out to be mutual.

It’s good to be back.

After a long offseason — one that proved to be even longer than expected after the club’s loss in the Western Conference semifinals to Sporting Kansas City — RSL was back on the training pitch Monday, blizzard and all.

Everyone was there, except a handful of "excused absences," like Corey Baird and Justen Glad — in U.S. men’s national team camp in Chula Vista, California — and Jordan Allen, who was excused by head coach Mike Petke for a "personal matter."

New signing Everton Luiz, the Brazilian midfielder joining RSL on loan from Italy’s SPAL, wasn’t available at camp as the club works to secure his U.S. visa and international transfer certificate.

But the rest of the club was there, from veterans like Kyle Beckerman, Tony Beltran and Nick Rimando, to newcomers like newly signed MLS SuperDraft picks Sam Brown and Kyle Coffee, to homegrowns young and old, like Erik Holt, Tate Schmitt and Donny Toia.

And as almost every one of them was asked the similar question as they shuttled from the training pitch to the weight room to the locker room and finally a post-practice media scrum, the feeling was unanimous: it’s good to be back.

"The offseason was too long for me personally," said midfielder Albert Rusnak, the team’s talismanic Slovakian who signed a long-term Designated Player contract to stay with Salt Lake. "I looked forward to it when it began, but halfway through, I was ready to come back. I’m glad we are here, and we got the first fitness run out of the way.

"From now on, it’s the fun stuff."

The most difficult part of the season for a professional athlete or coach is the offseason, whether that offseason is needed or not.

There’s only so much you can do around the house, Petke said; only so much “help” you can be to the wife before she starts asking when you are going back to work.

“My wife is sick of me. My kids are sick of me. I was dying to get back here,” Petke said. “I felt good, and I’m looking forward to getting to LA tomorrow, too.”

For some, the chance to be back with the team was refreshing. Luke Mulholland spent 10 days in his hometown of Preston, England, to visit family but was back in Utah by the New Year to train and get ready for the 2019 season, one that Major League Soccer shortened by about a week.

Mulholland wasn’t healthy for the start of preseason training camp last year, and he missed almost the entire season with back surgery.

When it came to decision day on his contract with the club, RSL declined his option for 2019, along with nine other players. Mulholland was free to find a new team, going through the league-mandated mechanisms of re-entry drafts and so forth to find a place that he wanted for the next season.

But it was all a waste of time, a sham, really, for the native Englishman.

Even though Mulholland grew up in Preston and went to college at Wingate, a private school in North Carolina, he only had one home where he wanted to spend his sixth season in Major League Soccer.

"This is where I bought my first home, and this is where I pay my mortgage and all my bills," Mulholland said. "Utah is my home now, and it will be for some time."

Mulholland didn’t explore his options, but veteran defender Tony Beltran did.

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Luke Mulholland is returning to Real Salt Lake

Luke Mulholland’s journey away from Real Salt Lake lasted about 20 days. The veteran midfielder has signed a new contract with Sandy’s Major League Soccer club, RSL announced Wednesday afternoon.

The 31-year-old right back was drafted by Real Salt Lake with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2008 MLS SuperDraft.

But when RSL declined his option following the 2018 season, Beltran faced a decision. Having spent more than eight years with a single club, Beltran was eligible for free agency — and those were waters he needed to test to see his value on the open market after missing all but one game of the 2018 season with a knee injury suffered in the final weeks of 2017.

So when asked if there was ever a doubt that Beltran would return to the only professional club he’s known, he was brutally honest: yes, there was.

But RSL was also brutally honest with Beltran as they met to discuss his future with the team and what his role would look like if he were to re-sign in Salt Lake City.

“RSL was always going to be my first choice. It would’ve been difficult to pull me anywhere else; it would’ve taken something monumental,” said Beltran, before admitting: “I never fully thought that I was going to leave, but of course, in the back of my mind, there was a concern that this wouldn’t work out.

“It’s pro sports, after all.”

For Beltran’s sake — and Mulholland’s — the two sides came to an agreement around the time general manager Craig Waibel signed a new deal that foreshadowed some front-office shuffling in the offseason, most notably bringing in former Real Monarchs vice president Rob Zarkos in as executive vice president of soccer operations, allowing Waibel to focus more on the team’s roster.

In the world of high-dollar sports negotiations between players, agents and clubs, RSL and Beltran were brutally honest with one another.

And it worked out for the better.

“The management here at RSL did a fantastic job of communicating with me,” Beltran said, “and of being honest about where they were at and where they saw me moving forward.”

Among the new additions are Luiz, the 5-foot-8 midfielder from Porto Alegre, Brazil, who will join the club once he’s legally able; as well as outside back Donny Toia, who holds the distinction of being RSL’s first-ever homegrown player to sign with the first team, but returns to Salt Lake City most recently from Orlando City SC.

Then there are the rookies: SuperDraft picks Sam Brown from Harvard, and Washington's Kyle Coffee, who traveled the great distance from his hometown in Syracuse, Utah, to make it to the Herriman academy for opening day.

There’s also the bevy of new first-year, homegrown talent produced by the RSL Academy: former UCLA center back Erik Holt, Louisville forward Tate Schmitt, and Luis Arriaga and Julian Vazquez, who both came straight from the academy.

Like the veterans, every one of them was expected to report to training camp, which will move to Los Angeles on Tuesday and make stops in Hawaii, Arizona and Herriman before opening day March 2 in Houston, with the home opener scheduled for a week later against Vancouver.

And every one of them will be expected to shoulder the same expectations, to contribute to the culture Petke has strived to built as he enters his third season with the club.

“A culture of accountability, of respect, of giving 100 percent mentally and physically,” Petke said. “Those are key core values that I’ve always held, and I’m seeing it more and more since I’ve taken over — but I think we can do better.”

Warmer, perhaps more soccer-friendly climates await for RSL than the one to which the players woke up Monday morning, with snow blocking driveways and icy roads making travel between team meeting rooms in downtown Salt Lake City and the the Herriman academy treacherous.

But for now, it’s just good to be back.

“It’s great to see the guys and get everybody back in town,” Beckerman said. “It seems like everybody had a good offseason, and now we are ready to get going full speed.”

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