Onni Valakari needed only a few minutes on the pitch Tuesday night to close San Diego FC\u2019s inaugural Leagues Cup foray with a 2-0 win over Mazatlan FC at Snapdragon Stadium.<\/p>\n
Shortly after subbing in for Luca de la Torre at the 62nd minute, Valakari broke a scoreless stalemate when he booted a left-footed screamer that Mazatlan goalkeeper Victor Alcaraz had no hope of stopping.<\/p>\n
The 66th-minute goal, set up by a perfectly placed cross from Anders Dreyer, gave SDFC (1-0-2) its first lead in Phase One of Leagues Cup play. Valakari added to that advantage eight minutes later, when David Vazquez dumped a pass off to the streaking midfielder.<\/p>\n
Valakari\u2019s shot from right-to-left found the net, out of the reach of a diving Alcaraz, guaranteed SDFC would not go winless in a disappointing Leagues Cup debut. It also sealed the visiting club\u2019s fate both for the night and in the Leagues Cup.<\/p>\n
Stakes were low for SDFC coming into Tuesday\u2019s contest, reflected in the sparse attendance at Snapdragon Stadium. Losses of 3-2 to CF Pachuca on July 29 and 2-1 to Tigres UANL last Friday eliminated SDFC from the annual competition between clubs from Major League Soccer and Mexico\u2019s Liga MX.<\/p>\n
However, Mazatlan (1-1-1) arrived in San Diego with five points and above the top-four cutoff line on the Liga MX side of the tournament. The visiting Ca\u00f1oneros earned two points for defeating Los Angeles FC in penalties and downing Houston Dynamo last week.<\/p>\n
SDFC successfully played the role of spoiler, frustrating the purple-clad Mazatlan squad. A red card issued to captain Nicolas Benedetti in the 78th minute effectively signaled the end of Mazatlan\u2019s hopes to advance to the eight-team knockout stage.<\/p>\n
C.J. dos Santos, donning a protective mask for the nose he broke July 5 vs. Houston, made his return in goal. He did not see much work with SDFC dominating possession for more than 75% of the match, only making his first save in a month during the 86th minute.<\/p>\n
Jesus Hernandez\u2019s attempt was Mazatlan\u2019s only shot on goal compared to six for SDFC.<\/p>\n
Dos Santos took back over for Pablo Sisniega, who conceded only three total goals in four Major League starts but allowed five in SDFC\u2019s two previous Leagues Cup matches.<\/p>\n
With dos Santos back in goal and Dreyer returning after missing Friday\u2019s loss to Tigres due to a red card, SDFC rounded back near full-strength ahead of this week\u2019s resumption of MLS play.<\/p>\n
The league\u2019s Western Conference-leading club travels to Kansas City on Saturday in SDFC\u2019s first MLS match since beating Nashville FC on July 25, 1-0.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 5, 2025 at 9:12 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Onni Valakari needed only a few minutes on the pitch Tuesday night to close San Diego FC\u2019s inaugural…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":122746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,3549,15520,7264,221,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-122745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-fc","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114980047347686445","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}