{"id":368642,"date":"2025-11-10T06:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T06:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/368642\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T06:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T06:52:11","slug":"san-diego-fc-advances-in-mls-playoffs-with-dominant-4-0-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/368642\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego FC advances in MLS playoffs with dominant 4-0 win"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>San Diego FC defender Christopher McVey celebrates after advancing through the first round of the MLS playoffs. (Photo by Gregory Bull\/Associated Press)<\/p>\n

San Diego FC dominated and devastated<\/a> the Portland Timbers Sunday during a 4-0
home victory that ended the Timbers\u2019 season and earned SDFC a trip to the MLS Western
Conference semi-finals.<\/p>\n

A sold-out crowd of 32,000 fans watched SDFC keep a historic debut season alive<\/a> at Snapdragon Stadium. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur environment has been unbelievable,\u201d SDFC head coach Mikey Varas said after the
match.<\/p>\n

SDFC now faces Minnesota United FC in the Western Conference semifinals, beginning Nov. 24 as they look to become the second expansion team to win the MLS Cup.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for San Diego to give the fans something to cheer during the decisive match
in this best-of-three series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first goal came in the fifth minute, when SDFC right wing<\/a> and league MVP-candidate Anders Dreyer<\/a> scored his first of two goals with a left-footed shot from the center of the scoring box to the net\u2019s lower left zone, off an assist from Onni Valakari.<\/p>\n

Just 12 minutes later, left wing Amahl Pelligrino scored his first of two goals with a right-footed shot. Like Dreyer\u2019s first, it came from the center of the box and was delivered to the lower left zone of the net.<\/p>\n

SDFC led 2-0 at the half after possessing the ball for nearly 63% of the opening
45 minutes. The club generated 10 shots during the first half, six of which were on goal and two of which found the net.<\/p>\n

Portland, on the other hand, generated eight shots, three of which were on goal and none of
which found the back of the net.<\/p>\n

For the full match, SDFC maintained 66% possession time and had 15 shot attempts,
including nine on goal. Portland had nine shot attempts, with just three on goal.<\/p>\n

But SDFC didn\u2019t take its foot off the gas pedal. In the 53 rd minute Pelligrino again scored on a right-footed shot from the center of the box, but this time into the upper right central zone of the net. Center forward Corey Baird was credited with the assist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m starting to show myself,\u201d Pelligrino, who had a slow start to the season but has six goals in his last five matches, said during the post-match press conference. \u201cIf you train
good and have a good relation(ship) with your teammates, it\u2019s easy to play on a team like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for him that he scored two,\u201d Dreyer said of Pelligrino.<\/p>\n

Dreyer collected his own brace during the 79th minute when he nailed a right-footed shot from the center of the box to the lower right portion of the net.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy with teammates like I have here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe scored four beautiful goals. It\u2019s a good feeling. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With San Diego leading 4-0, frustrations started to show for Portland in the latter portion of
the match. Less than a minute after Dreyer\u2019s second goal, Portland center back Juan Mosquera elbowed midfielder Hirving \u201cChucky\u201d Lozano in the neck, knocking Lozano to the ground.<\/p>\n

Mosquera was shown the red card and disqualified from the remainder of the match, forcing
the Timbers to play 10 on 11 for the remaining 10-plus minutes.<\/p>\n

Lozano had just checked into the game nine minutes before being struck. He was once again
was used in a reserve role for San Diego, entering the match during the 70 th minute, with SDFC nursing a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s second-leading scorer and one of the highest-paid players in MLS, Lozano lost
his starting role \u2013 and temporarily any role at all \u2013 with San Diego following a verbal altercation with the coaching staff after he was pulled at halftime during an Oct. 4 match against the Houston Dynamo.<\/p>\n

He then sat out the following two matches before being brought back as a reserve during the three-game playoff series against Portland.<\/p>\n

Under the MLS playoff format, the semifinals are single-elimination matches, with the winners advancing to the conference finals the following weekend. SDFC\u2019s match against Minnesota United FC is scheduled for 7pm at Snapdragon Stadium on Nov. 24.<\/p>\n

San Diego and Minnesota split their two matches in the regular season, with SDFC winning
4-2 in June and United FC prevailing 3-1 on the road in September.<\/p>\n

Notes: On Tuesday, Dreyer was named Newcomer of the Year by Major League Soccer.
Dreyer, 27, is the first San Diego player ever to earn a year-end award and the first Danish
player named Newcomer of the Year. Earlier in the season, he was named to the 2025 MLS All-Star team and was also named Player of the Month in both June and August.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego FC defender Christopher McVey celebrates after advancing through the first round of the MLS playoffs. (Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":368643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,55904,1582,276,6071,3549,15520,7264,53518,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-368642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-anders-dreyer","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-major-league-soccer","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-fc","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-snapdragon-stadium","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\/115524085150819072","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368642","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=368642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}