No soccer expert would’ve blamed coach Mikey Varas if he’d opted for the tie.
Keeping the score at 1-1 over the final several minutes of Saturday’s match against Real Salt Lake in Utah would’ve secured a minor victory for Varas’ first-year team, San Diego FC.
The San Diego newbies were without their best offensive player, Hirving “Chucky” Lozano, and had lost defender Paddy McNair to a first-half injury.
The high-altitude conditions in Sandy, Utah, wear down many visitors. Real Salt Lake had lost only three of 18 home matches dating to its 2023 opener and had won its home debut a week earlier.
So the conventional wisdom that was tapping Varas on the shoulder was this: adopt a defensive approach that would conserve energy and reduce the odds of a season-first defeat, close out the draw and take the one point back to San Diego.
No thank you, said Varas.
The coach adopted the same approach of many of San Diego’s surfers when a distant storm sends monstrous waves toward Sunset Cliff, La Jolla or Encinitas.
Kowabunga!
San Diego FC continued to press forward. Though fatigued, the players mustered the energy to attack in the thin air.
Many folks watched in amazement. Among them was Real Salt Lake’s coach and the club’s broadcasters.
The results rewarded Varas.
San Diego FC scored twice in stoppage time and won 3-1. The expansion club improved its road record to 2-0 this season.
Varas showed in SDFC’s first two matches that he’s committed to an offense-oriented approach that features a high back line, compact shapes in of a ball-control attack and aggressive pressing of opponents.
Breaking new ground late in Saturday’s match, Varas showed he’ll remain aggressive even when there’s a solid argument against it.
Real Salt Lake coach Pablo Mastroeni qualifies as a soccer expert. A native of soccer-mad Argentina, he played in two World Cups with the United States and won an MLS Cup within his 16-year MLS playing career.
Mastroeni lauded the chutzpah of the San Diego newbies.
“I was really shocked how well they pressed, even late in the game,” said Mastroeni, a former defender who has coached with three MLS franchises. “It was quite phenomenal, the amount of energy and commitment they had to their press.”
Before the season began, I urged Varas and players to lean into both offense and entertainment. I argued that their expansion status should liberate them, if they had any reservations about pushing the tactical envelopes.
If the late-game aggression Saturday night had dealt his team a 2-1 defeat, I wouldn’t have criticized Varas. He is trying to establish a core style that, while able to accommodate numerous tweaks, can succeed in a wide variety of circumstances.
The best way to master it, logically, is to stick with it.
“We wanted to go after the game,” Varas said. “We showed that. That’s our attitude.”
He added: “A lot of teams could say, ‘OK, we’re satisfied with (the tie),’ but we’ve talked about wanting to go after the game and continue to stay with an initiative. And the boys showed that they wanted the 2-1, but they also showed they wanted a three(-point showing). … That’s something that we’re trying to develop within the group. And they’re buying in.”
The victory on the scoreboard wasn’t due to an abundance of excellent soccer.
San Diego was fortunate Salt Lake didn’t add to its 1-0 lead on a couple of occasions. A few of SDFC’s breakdowns were glaring. Varas’ team (2-0-1) actually controlled play better in its other two games, at LA Galaxy (0-3-0) and against St. Louis City (1-0-2) in Mission Valley.
San Diego did get an entertaining goal from an unlikely source, defender Franco Negri.
Unmarked, the Argentine completed a give-and-go with a perfect 15-yard header, a “what in the name of Messi?” moment that tied the score 1-1 and gave Negri two scores in 30 career MLS matches.
Lozano’s first stand-in, Colombia’s Tomás Ángel, 22, delivered his second gorgeous assist this month. In feeding Negri, the left-footer layered his chipped beyond a 6-foot-6 defender.
But notwithstanding the stoppage-time goals from Anders Dreyer and Marcus Ingvartsen, it was San Diego’s overall tactical aggression that stood out the most.
Real Salt Lake’s broadcasters, Spencer Warne and Jay Nolly, expressed surprise at the visitors’ zeal for pressing, especially late in the match.
Nolly, a former MLS goalkeeper, gave SDFC its due. But the color analyst wondered if performances such as Saturday’s are sustainable.
“People are gonna pick ’em apart as the season comes on,” Nolly said.
Thirty-one regular-season matches remain, starting with Saturday’s home contest against Columbus (2-0-1).
The San Diego newbies can’t be accused of being either dull or timid.
