San Diego FC opened its third home game of the season against Los Angeles FC on Saturday night, winning 3-2 at Snapdragon Stadium. This was the team’s first home win of its inaugural season.
From beginning to end, the chant “Beat LA” was being yelled at throughout the stadium as 32,502 fans attended the game.
LAFC’s supporter mostly sat in sections 211 and 212, making their presence known inside the stadium.
Winger Alex Mighten talked about the fan culture in San Diego.
“Before the football even started, you know, the hype around the team and the city, it’s what we’ve really needed, and it’s what’s got us over the line today,” Mighten said. “I’m just super happy that we’ve got amazing supporters that are there for us every single game and we just want to give back to them, and thankfully today we were able to do that.”
SDFC started strong on both sides of the field. A close goal came in the 9-minute mark when midfielder Aníbal Godoy attempted a shot from outside the box, but LAFC goalkeeper Hugo Lloris saved it in the bottom right corner.
Neither team scored early in the first half, and it wasn’t until the 21-minute mark that Man of the Match defender Chris McVey, scored the first goal for SDFC. The goal came off a free kick by winger Anders Dreyer, opening the opportunity for McVey to score a header from the center of the box that went to the top right corner.
SDFC earned another free kick, which Dreyer took. He kicked a long shot, which was saved by Lloris. Lloris caught the ball but fumbled right off his hands, from which midfielder Onni Valakari was in the right place to find the ball, scoring at the 33-minute mark.
Minutes later, at the 40-minute mark, SDFC kept their momentum, scoring their final goal of the night when Mighten scored his first goal with an assist from Valakari.
“You can’t really put it into words,” Mighten said. “I’ve been practicing being, you know, on the back post in training, and you know, you can get a lot of goals there this season. So just remembering to be in the penalty box, especially when the ball comes across. It was a really really good moment, like I said. I thank God, and it’s only the start for me.”
LAFC started to crawl right behind SDFC at the 43-minute mark, as defender Artem Smolyakov kicked a long shot outside the box that went into the net.
SDFC couldn’t hold off LAFC’s attack, as they scored their last goal of the night in the extra time before halftime. Forward Cengiz Ünder scored the goal right in close range of the net, with an assist from midfielder Mark Delgado at the 50-minute mark.
Head coach Mikey Varas talked about his team’s success and how LAFC got to them to end the first half.
“I think we played against a top team with top players,” Varas said. “These things can happen. The first 38-40 minutes of that half were unbelievable. I hope everybody takes notice in San Diego of the effort of the guys, the quality of the guys. I thought they were just absolutely lights out, I had goosebumps during that moment.”
“And then, yeah, we got a little bit. I don’t know what happened,” Varas said. “They started pressing us a little bit, we made an error, we lost our composure for a few minutes but halftime came at a good moment to cut that momentum.”
By the second half, everything had slowed down. Neither team was able to score, although they had multiple plays when they came close.
The moment that many Hispanic fans had been waiting for came at the 72-minute mark. Forward Hirving “Chucky” Lozano entered the match when he substituted for midfielder Luca de la Torre. Lozano suffered a hamstring injury early in the 1st half of the home opener on March 1 against St. Louis City SC.
“Well, the truth is that it hurt me a little to be away for those four weeks,” Lozano said. “But I worked very hard, I tried to recover as soon as possible. And well, the truth is that I felt very good in the field.”
There was a play into the second half extra time at the 94-minute mark, defender Eddie Segura received a yellow card for a foul on Lozano. Lozano and Segura started to get a little chippy, but officials and teammates quickly separated them before it became a bigger situation.
By the end of the game, LAFC received three yellow cards, and a fourth was converted to a red card after midfielder Igor Jesus committed a foul. SDFC only committed four yellow cards.
The statistics for the night were SDFC having six shots on goal out of 14 attempted shots, while goalkeeper CJ dos Santos recorded four blocked shots. LAFC had 12 shots, with four shots on goal, and Lloris had two blocked shots.
With the win, SDFC moved into second place in the MLS Western Conference with 11 points.
SDFC will stay home as they play against Seattle Sounders FC on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Fans can also watch the game on Apple TV with an MLS Season Pass Subscription.
