The way it’s gone, San Diego FC soon will roll out Swedish pop band Abba’s top hits and add pickled herring and cured salmon to stadium menus.
“Thank heavens for Scandinavia” is the unofficial motto of the surprising Major League Soccer expansion club, which has beaten both Los Angeles teams and next will play the Seattle Sounders, a longtime stalwart, Saturday in Mission Valley.
Players from Denmark, Finland and Sweden have ed for seven of SDFC’s 10 goals, and half of its eight assists. San Diego FC is 3-1-2 through six matches, good for third in MLS’ Western Conference.
No less valuable than his fellow imports of northern Europe has been team captain Jeppe Tverskov of Denmark. Though he has yet to score or log an assist, Tverskov seems to have three lungs. The midfielder has run some 40 miles across the six matches, never exiting.
SDFC’s leader in goals-plus-assists with five is Finland’s own Onni Valakari.
Saturday, two others provided a Nordic spin on the beautiful game in the 3-2 win over Los Angeles FC.
Denmark’s Anders Dreyer, the team’s goal leader with three, curled a free kick into the box.
From 10 yards, 6-foot-3½ Swedish defender Christopher McVey headed the ball for his first goal.
The expectation for SDFC was that much would be needed from five Scandinavian veterans, hardened by their tenures in European leagues. Nor was it a surprise that three starters hail from soccer-loving Denmark, a quarterfinalist in the 1998 World Cup.
A country of nearly 6 million residents — about twice the population of San Diego County — Denmark s San Diego, Egypt and Ghana in housing a Right to Dream Academy for soccer-player development. Tverskov and Marcus Ingvartsen were teammates on SDFC’s sister franchise, Denmark’s FC Nordsjaelland. Also, they were familiar with Dreyer’s game.
But coming into SDFC’s training camp and season, the team’s most celebrated player was left wing Hirving “Chucky” Lozano, not only because of his exciting track record but also his Mexican heritage. The leg injury Lozano suffered March 1, from which he returned late in Saturday’s match, asked more of the Scandinavians.
They’ve responded well.
A larger international trend, however, is playing out in SDFC’s first season.
Sixteen of the team’s 21 players who’ve appeared in a game are foreign nationals, per FB-Reference. Does the paucity of Americans on San Diego’s roster provide more fodder to critics of soccer development in the United States? Perhaps.
A key player for SDFC, though, is Luca de la Torre, a native San Diegan who played for local youth teams the Nomads and the Surf. The midfielder, 26, has fueled SDFC’s above average ball-control success; he scored in the 2-1 loss at Austin.
Yes, most of de la Torre’s development as a professional came in Europe where he played for leagues in England, the Netherlands and Spain.
Expanding the local lens, it’s clear that SDFC has accelerated the growing trend of international athletes spicing up the San Diego sports scene.
As the Padres head toward another season of strong attendance, they and the Houston Astros are first in Major League Baseball with 16 internationally born players. And the Padres stand first by themselves with players from eight different countries and territories outside of the United States. At 26, Fernando Tatis Jr., who grew up in the Dominican Republic, already qualifies as one of the more popular and exciting players in franchise history. (The Padres’ top prospect is another Dominican, shortstop Leodalis De Vries.)
Two years ago, San Diego State’s run to the school’s first national championship game in basketball drew strength from a pair of players who were born in Africa: Ghana’s Nathan Mensah, who led the team in rebounds and blocked shots; and forward Aguek Arop, whose family came to the United States as political refugees from South Sudan.
On the same day the two internationals teamed up for SDFC’s sparkling goal, the San Diego Wave of the National Women’s Soccer League got a similar gem via French midfielder Kenza Dali (assist) and Nigerian rookie Chiamaka Okwuchukwu (goal), two newcomers from abroad.
Last season, the fourth-year National Women’s Soccer League franchise saw rising stars from Africa lift several NWSL competitors. Responding, the Wave have started 11 featured players from nine countries, tying a league record.
The international athletic surge in Mission Valley was predictable once the Chargers moved to Greater Los Angeles. The American football team’s exit invited the country’s top soccer league to plant teams on the same site.
Where the NFL takes its game to the world for a few contests per season, while relying almost entirely on American-born players who have the advantage of playing in the world’s best American football developmental programs, it only makes sense for U.S. soccer leagues to recruit players from abroad.
Futbol, after all, is the world’s game. The Yanks are still playing catch-up.
