San Diego FC 3 : 0 Sounders FC

Normally when a side wins 3-0 and scores three goals, there are plenty of plaudits for the forwards. Jeppe Tverskov, Aníbal Godoy and Hirving “Chucky” Lozano scored for the home side, all in the first half but they didn’t have possession all their own way.

Sounders had 57.1% of the possession and the SDFC defence was under pressure for large swathes of the game, especially in the second half. But they never buckled or looked even close to it. The visitors only managed four shots on target and ten off target despite all that possession.

Obviously, after his side’s convincing vanquishing of Sounders FC, San Diego Head Coach Mikey Varas faced questions mostly about the offence and the scoring debut of DP Lozano, whose scoring debut delighted the many Mexican-American fans who support this club.

However he took time to praise his defenders for their clean sheet which was Dos Santos’ third of the season after those at LA Galaxy and home to St Louis City, and which has limited their goals against to six in seven games.

“I think for us; there’s a couple priorities. One is that it’s always together and it’s always compact. So, you see a team that travels together, you don’t see a team that gets split too often into different islands. The other thing is a fighting team spirit and kind of grit to it.

“Seattle is a good team, they make their shape pretty big and build up, it’s hard to build a lot of pressure on the ball, but even winning 3-0, you can still see we’re pressing the goalkeeper. We’re going for it.

Varas recognised that only being in possession a minority of the game had presented challenges that a 3-0 victory might not immediately convey to the casual observer.

“We’re not just dropping low. When we got pushed into a low block, it was because Seattle’s got quality, and at some point, they kind of pushed us there. But then we wanted to bring our block back high.”

Indeed, it was true that at 3-0 down, Seattle had plenty of the ball. However, the lack of potency or guile to unlock SDFC or even trouble the goalkeeper must surely be of concern to head coach Brian Schmetzer.

Albert Rusnak’s 80th minute equaliser in San Jose is now their only goal in 376 minutes of play. Although Pedro de la Vega managed the final 30 minutes, the game was long gone by then and Jordan Morris cannot return soon enough for the struggling Cascadian side.

San Diego head to Colorado to experience the joys of a game at altitude while Sounders FC have a third successive road game although April would seem to be a better time to visit Dallas FC than July.

Lineups:

SAN DIEGO FC: GK CJ Dos Santos, D Franco Negri (Hamady Diop, 67’), D Paddy McNair, D Christopher McVey, D Jasper Löffelsend (Willy Kumado, 55’), M Luca de la Torre (Alejandro Alvarado Jr., 80’), M Jeppe Tverskov -C-, M Aníbal Godoy, F Hirving “Chucky” Lozano (Alex Mighten, 67’), F Onni Valakari, F Anders Dreyer (Tomás Ángel, 80’)

Substitutes Not Used: GK Pablo Sisniega, D Andrés Reyes, D Ian Pilcher, M Heine Bruseth

TOTAL SHOTS: 10; SHOTS ON GOAL: 4; FOULS: 22; OFFSIDES: 3; CORNER KICKS: 3; SAVES; 4

SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC: GK Stefan Frei –C-, D Nouhou, D Jackson Ragen, D Yeimar Gomez, D Alex Roldan (Kalani Kossa-Rienzi, 31’), M Cristian Roldan, M Albert Rusnak (Danny Leyva, 46’), M Paul Rothrock (Reed Baker-Whiting, 81’), M Obed Vargas, M Georgi Minoungou (Pedro de la Vega, 61’), F Jesus Ferreira (Danny Musovski, 61’)

Substitutes Not Used: GK Andrew Thomas, D Jonathan Bell, D Kim Kee-hee, D Jao Paulo.

TOTAL SHOTS: 14; SHOTS ON GOAL: 4; FOULS: 10; OFFSIDES: 5; CORNER KICKS: 5; SAVES: 1

Referee: Malik Badawi

Follow us on bluesky

Follow us on Twitter