Onni Valakari — birth name: Onni Johannes Simonpoika Valakari — is a 25-year-old reserve midfielder who ed San Diego FC this season on loan from a club in Cyprus. The son of former FC Dallas Simo Valakari, Onni is a Finn who got his soccer start playing in both his home country and Norway.
Saturday night, thousands of miles away from Cyprus, Finland and Norway, Valakari made San Diego soccer history.
His 69th-minute header past Columbus goalie Patrick Shulte delivered the first-ever goal for San Diego FC at Snapdragon Stadium, knotting a match that ended in a 1-1 draw.
San Diego FC has yet to lose its first Major League Soccer match; the club is 2-0-2, winning both of its road matches and tying both matches at home. Columbus, a team SDFC coach Mikey Varas called “the best possession team in North America,” has an identical record.
“First goal here, so it’s something special,” Valakari said. “I hope it opens up the lock for us so that we can score even more goals.”
As the men in chrome and azul celebrated Valakari’s goal, flames shot skyward from stanchions stationed behind both goals and royal blue smoke bombs were set off in the ers’ section. It had been a long time coming — 160 minutes over two matches, not counting injury and stoppage time. San Diego’s first home match, a March 1 tilt with St. Louis City SC, ended in a scoreless tie.
Just about the only person who wasn’t celebrating was Varas.
“There’s going to be a lot of firsts this season, to be honest with you, and I think this is a testament to the work the boys have done,” he said. “But I have no emotions to it, because I’m disappointed that we tied the game. I think if we won, I probably would have felt more joy. But this ultimately feels like a disappointment to us.”
Indeed, there were more firsts on Saturday night:
In the 16th minute, Columbus’ Maximilian Arfsten bounced a left-footed shot past goalie CJ dos Santos for the first goal of any kind in Snapdragon Stadium’s Major League Soccer history.
In the 40th minute, San Diego’s Paddy McNair delivered the first home goal in club history … only to watch the first crushing offside call of the season negate the score.
There was the first video review of a goal, wiping another SDFC score off the board. And the first red card, against Columbus.
And then, finally, Valakari’s goal – a first worth getting fired up about. The lid-lifter seemed to unleash the SDFC crowd, a group that included nearly a dozen San Diego Padres, including Manny Machado (a SDFC part-owner), Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, Michael King and others. They were introduced pregame as “Joe Musgrove and teammates”; Musgrove walked an oversized LED soccer ball to midfield as part of pregame ceremonies.
San Diego controlled possession 50.4% of the match. outshot Columbus 17-7 and had more shots on goal (7) than the Crew (3). The home team’s expected goals total was 2.6, far greater than the one score it delivered.
“These guys are disappointed in the locker room, and I hope that goes a long way for everybody in San Diego,” Varas said. “Because we’re eight, nine weeks in as a club, and we just played against a top team, and we had them. We had the game to go for it, to get it, and we’re disappointed that we didn’t win.”
Notable
- Before the game, Varas, San Diego FC CEO Tom Penn, midfielder Anibal Godoy and Vanessa Bejarano of the ers’ union addressed fans about stopping a one-word Spanish epithet that has been chanted during the visiting team’s goal kicks. The slur marred SDFC’s first home match, and was heard again in the final minute of Saturday’s tie. The club’s “Aqui no/not here” campaign seemed to have some effect; fans chanted the slur three times in the first home game. “I think we made a really good step in the right direction,” Varas said.
- San Diego played 11-on-10 for the final 30 minutes after Columbus’ Malte Amundsen was assessed a red card. Amundsen grabbed San Diego’s Anders Dreyer by the jersey as Dreyer dribbled past him near the top of the box. SDFC scored minutes later to even the match but could not convert its chances after that.
