Through two matches, San Diego FC stands as a pleasant surprise to outsiders.
Instead of resembling an expansion club, it has played mostly cohesive soccer to grab a win and a tie.
“We look like a team,” said club executive Tyler Heaps, sounding unsurprised. “It’s been very impressive.”
Now comes a tougher test in a still-toddling season that runs into mid-October.
Can the lads keep their game up, nearly a mile high and without their best offensive player?
The answer comes Saturday in Utah against Real Salt Lake.
Heaps, the club’s sporting director and general manager, acknowledged Real Salt Lake (1-1-0) will have gone to school on his team’s ball-control tactics to a greater extent than either defending-champ Galaxy (0-2-0) or St. Louis City (1-0-1) could have done before facing San Diego (1-0-1).
Maintaining a crisp standard from one match through the next match is “always the challenge” and “the most difficult thing to do,” the GM said.
Playing at high altitude has vexed countless San Diego sports teams over the decades. Heck, this club had never boarded a plane until Friday, when it headed to Utah.
“Probably 90% of our team has never been to Salt Lake before,” said Heaps.
One player who wasn’t on the flight is Hirving “Chucky” Lozano, the star striker who exited the first half of last Saturday’s tie against St. Louis with an apparent leg injury.
“It’s not a serious injury,” Heaps said.
However it fares in Utah, San Diego FC has established core strengths that should arrive in the Beehive State with its luggage.
Against both Los Angeles and St. Louis, the first-year club showed mastery of ing and receiving, of maintaining a compact shape, and of advancing its back line much farther upfield than is typical. All those variables are interrelated.
As if the San Diego newbies have somehow tapped into Spain’s soccer vibe, the team’s ing numbers through the two games are stunning.
SDFC has attempted and completed more than twice as many short es as its opponents. All told, it has completed about 500 more es than the other team. Its dominance of ball control and pressing has translated into advantages of 40-14 in shot-creating actions and 54-18 in touches in the attacking penalty area – dominance no MLS guru outside SDFC would’ve forecast.
Even if lapses are coming at some point, and even though it didn’t turn its ball-hogging into a goal against St. Louis in the home opener six days after parlaying two Galaxy turnovers into goals, this start-up has shown it can hold its own and entertain.
“I do think that the core principles about what we’re trying to do have been there,” said Heaps, who played soccer for tiny Augsburg University in Minneapolis, holds a degree in mathematics and computer science, has an analytics background and worked with the Right to Dream developmental program, a French League team in Monaco and the U.S. Soccer Federation. “And we’ve been impressive in that state and probably should be 2-and-0 right now.”
It’s not rare to see two or three players on each MLS side who panic when a defender challenges them on the ball.
SDFC’s players at every level in the fluid 4-3-3 formation, in contrast, have appeared comfortable in responding to pressure.
“Crazy, huh?” said Heaps.
The 33-year-old GM praised SDFC players and coach Mikey Varas, who has a heavy background in player development.
“There are some players that showed up on Day 1 and probably were very wide-eyed in of how we wanted them to play,” Heaps said. “It’s something that’s just confidence. It’s confidence and joy of football. Everybody says they want to play with the ball. But there’s a lot of teams that very quickly after they get a bit of pressure will kick it long because it’s too risky.
“So, it’s the way that we train,” Heaps added. “We train in very tight spaces. We train where these guys have to make decisions under pressure. And, we now have made it very difficult to play against ourselves. When we work on our press in training, it is very difficult to win the ball because our players are so comfortable with it.”
Maintaining possession at high altitude could bring a bonus: the opponent might wear down faster.
Minus Lozano, though, playing the beautiful game will be more difficult.
Tomás Ángel, 22, and Emmanuel Boateng, 31, replaced Lozano at left wing last week. Both Colombia’s Ángel and Mexico’s Lozano assisted Danish right wing Anders Dreyer in the 2-0 win against Galaxy.
If SDFC is to bring home a point or three, another strong game may be needed from midfielder and team captain Jeppe Tverskov.
The 31-year-old Dane leads the team in es and completions and has maintained possession through numerous challenges. Perhaps more than anyone, Tverskov has helped to effect the team’s success at maintaining its preferred spacing and tempo.
