San Diego FC didn’t lose Saturday night at Snapdragon Stadium against a Sporting KC team that has an interim head coach, is in 13th place in the Western Conference and was missing its best player.
It just felt that way.
The 0-0 tie on a soggy evening before an announced crowd of 25,233 was dominated by the hosts in possession, corner kicks, flash, glitz, excitement and scoring chances.
But you don’t get points for style in soccer, only for balls in the back of the net, and SDFC failed to do so for just the third time in 14 games in its inaugural season. Saturday was its second 0-0 tie, the other also coming at Snapdragon Stadium against St. Louis City in its March 1 home opener.
Ties aren’t terrible. They get you a point in the standings. You avoid a loss. You extend your unbeaten streak, in this case to four games.
The problem, though, is less the result than the circumstances and consequences.
With so many teams in cold-weather cities and a season that begins in February, MLS often has West Coast clubs host more early games. SDFC, in fact, is in a stretch where five of six (and six of eight) are at Snapdragon Stadium.
That’s great in May, but it means the back half of the schedule and playoff stretch run will have more road than home dates. SDFC also has yet to play first-place Vancouver and many other teams near the top of the standings, further adding to the difficulty of the August and September fixtures.
In other words: When you play the 13th-place team at home with an interim coach and without its best player, you expect to win.
It’s the age-old question in soccer: Did you gain a point, or lose two?
“I think when we are home and the game developed as it did, we feel like it’s two points lost,” captain Jeppe Tverskov said. “That’s how it feels right now, in the moment. You also have to have in mind that we had a midweek game and we have seven points from (three games in the last eight days). That’s quite good when you look at it tomorrow.
“But obviously you want to win the game and felt like we had the game plan right, so we are a little bit disappointed.”
Sporting KC entered the night with the good vibes from a 2-2 tie at rival St. Louis City on Wednesday, which doesn’t seem like much until you realize they trailed 2-0 and had gone 24 games – more than a decade – without getting a point when facing a multi-goal deficit in the 70th minute.
The tying goal came from Serbian striker Dejan Joveljic, his team-high sixth of the season. It also makes him one of just five MLS players with at least six goals in each of the last four seasons.
But Joveljic was a late scratch from the trip west, staying home with his wife awaiting the birth of their first child. That thrust Santiago Munoz into the lineup, a 22-year-old striker born in El Paso, Texas, with dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship who arrived on loan from Mexican club Santos Laguna last month after a dry spell in Liga MX (and had played nine total MLS minutes in his career).
Sporting KC was buried in 13th place in the Western Conference with just three wins from 14 games. All three have come after Kerry Zavagnin was named interim coach in late March after the club parted ways with Peter Vermes, the league’s longest-tenured head coach who had led Sporting KC to one MLS Cup and three U.S. Open Cup titles before a 13-game winless streak sealed his fate.
Zavagnin positioned his team in an organized 4-3-3 alignment that kept numbers behind the ball and clogged ing lanes, letting SDFC keep possession, as it likes, but with nowhere really to go.
“We played against a different type of challenge in this game,” SDFC coach Mikey Varas said. “Sporting KC was pretty much just sitting in a (low) block, being patient. They were very disciplined. Credit to them for their game plan. They slowed the game down a lot. … That’s a challenge we’re going to have to learn how to face, because the last few games we faced teams that wanted to come press us.
“They didn’t have very much to offer in of attacking, but we didn’t find the key to unlock them.”
Neither team generated much offense in the opening 45 minutes. The most eventful, and scary, moment came midway through the half, when Chucky Lozano banged heads with Sporting KC midfield Manu Garcia chasing a high clearance from the box.
The referee immediately stopped play, and medical staff from both teams sprinted onto the field. Lozano got the worst of it, laying on his back for several minutes before wearily getting to his feet and walking slowly to the sideline.
He continued, however, and seemed to be his spry self until being subbed out in the 81st minute. By then, SDFC had started to pry open the Sporting KC defense and peppering goalkeeper John Pulskamp with shots, just not enough to dent the scoreboard.
Varas mined positives from disappointment.
“Listen, we always want to win every game, and at home you especially want to win,” said Varas, whose team hosts winless Los Angeles Galaxy next Saturday at 1:30 p.m. “As important as the home games are, you have to look at the big picture, too. We took seven points out of nine (possible) points in three games. That’s very good.
“We pushed the game, I feel like, pretty hard. We had attacking players all over the field, and we didn’t get opened up in transition. … We were able to maintain a clean sheet. It wasn’t this all-or-nothing, and all of a sudden it’s three points dropped at home instead of two.”
Notable
It was SDFC’s third tie in club history. All three have come at home … SDFC (7-4-3) dropped from second to third in the Western Conference standings, behind Vancouver and Minnesota … It was goalkeeper CJ Dos Santos’ sixth clean sheet … Left back Luca Bombino, just 18 and making his seventh career start, and was named Man of the Match … Defender Oscar Verhoeven, acquired on loan from the San Jose Earthquakes last month, made his first start for SDFC.
