Tom Krasovic: SDFC continues to sparkle, surprise in inaugural season

Tom Krasovic, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 9, 2025

Published in Soccer

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SAN DIEGO — The first question about any new sports franchise is whether its games can be entertaining enough to attract and retain fans.

San Diego FC, the new soccer squad in town, has gone for broke on the pitch since the first whistle blew. That style earned respect. But, without special talent, tactical gusto goes only so far.

Turns out, SDFC has skilled players, enabling the first-year club to create memorable moments like those that lit up Saturday’s match in Mission Valley.

Via deft passes and other professional touches, coach Mikey Varas’ club put home three first-half shots, driving the 3-0 victory over the Seattle Sounders.

The first-half ambush was the best show of the beautiful game yet from the expansion club, rewarding folks who wanted a Major League Soccer team in San Diego.

“It looks like San Diego is the real deal,” said former MLS midfielder Brad Evans, a Sounders broadcaster.

Soccer can be tedious to watch unless the midfielders and forwards have enough ability to overcome the sport’s stiff barriers against offense.

San Diego FC, reprising the roster-building of the popular San Diego Sockers indoor teams long ago, has brought in several savvy players from outside the United States.

These guys can play. There’s no doubt about it.

”They’re not scared, they’re not intimidated and they’ve taken the challenge really well,” Evans said.

Saturday night’s announced crowd of 28,228 was rewarded by the club’s top star, Mexican left wing Hirving “Chucky” Lozano, who showed what the buzz was about when he joined SDFC on a $12 million deal in June.

Lozano facilitated the first two goals and netted his first goal of the season, showing savvy and precision on all three plays. Expect his jersey, bearing No. 11, to become popular among locals.

“He’s going to be great here,” Diego Valeri, a former MLS MVP forward from Argentina told me a few weeks ago when the 5-foot-9 1/2 forward, a veteran of Mexico’s top league and a few European circuits, was sidelined by a leg injury sustained March 1.

SDFC (4-1-2) received a strong game once again from its seasoned group of Scandinavians headed by forward Anders Dreyer and Jeppe Tverskov of Denmark and midfielder-forward Onni Valakari of Finland. Other goal contributions came from Jasper Loffelsend, a German defender, and midfielder Anibal Godoy, a 35-year-old Panamanian who outsprinted a much younger opponent to score off Dreyer’s poised pass.

It’s no surprise that most of the best soccer players who play here come from countries where soccer is king.

Nor is it new in San Diego.

An influx of foreign stars enabled the San Diego Sockers to play a dazzling brand of indoor soccer that attracted best-in-class crowds to the Sports Arena in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Benefiting from the collapse of the outdoor North American Soccer League, the Sockers signed grizzled Europeans players who, despite being past their peak years, had offensive abilities that far exceeded those of their U.S.-bred counterparts.

”Imagine if Major League Soccer folded and there was no (United Soccer League) at that time — everyone would just go indoors,” former Sockers star defender Kevin Crow, a San Diego State alum who won eight rings with the franchise, said recently.

SDFC’s team-builders, in their search for international talent, had a built-in advantage through their connections to the Right to Dream developmental academies in Denmark and Ghana. Led by internationally savvy Mohamed Mansour, who has Egyptian and United Kingdom citizenship, and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, SDFC’s investors paid a record-breaking $500 million expansion fee to create MLS’ 30th franchise.

Mansour and staff seemed to find a sharp coach in Bay Area native Varas, whom the players have praised for developing a ball-control style complemented by quick counterattacks and lengthier passes.

In a crucial surprise Saturday, Varas’ team caught the Sounders off guard with a short corner kick to Lozano. The Mexico City native responded by defeating two defenders scrambling to get an angle on him. Then he cut back a pass, leading to Tverskov’s poised finish and a 1-0 lead just 81 seconds into the match.

There are 27 games to go, but the San Diego newbies have made themselves into a fun team to watch.

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