![\"SDFC's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-sdfcxol-0706-06.jpg\")
SDFC\u2019s Milan Iloski (32) fights for position during Saturday\u2019s MLS match against the Houston Dynamo, at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, CA. (Xavier Hernandez for the UT)<\/p>\nIf San Diego FC had any doubts that staying on top of the Major League Soccer Western Conference standings is harder than getting there, the 11th-place Houston Dynamo erased them Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The visiting team, attired in bright orange, performed much better than its minus-6 goal differential and took a 4-3 victory before an announced crowd of 28,231 in Mission Valley.<\/p>\n
Cranking up an offense that led the MLS in goals and assists, San Diego FC took leads of 2-1 and 3-2 but saw its five-game winning streak end and walked off with its first home loss since April 26, a 3-1 decision against Real Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n
Goals by Milan Iloski, Luca Bombino and Onni Valakari had SDFC ahead going into the 85th minute.<\/p>\n
From there, the first-year MLS club made two critical defensive errors.<\/p>\n
A poor pass from the rookie Bombino toward SDFC goalkeeper CJ dos Santos led to a collision that bloodied dos Santos\u2019 nose. Because dos Santos initiated the contact in the box, Houston was awarded a penalty kick.<\/p>\n
Argentine forward Ezequiel Ponce, who\u2019d inadvertently elbowed dos Santos in the nose, roofed the shot down the middle, tying the score in the 87th minute,<\/p>\n
The second defensive error came nine minutes into stoppage time.<\/p>\n
All but rolling a red carpet out, a cluster of SDFC players allowed Dynamo center back Ethan Bartlow to stroll toward the box with the ball.<\/p>\n
SDFC\u2019s Milan Iloski (32) fights for position during Saturday\u2019s MLS match against the Houston Dynamo, at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, CA. (Xavier Hernandez for the UT)<\/p>\n
Batlow threaded a through ball to Ponce, who one-touched a left-to-right shot past dos Santos, sending Houston toward the win.<\/p>\n
Iloski, the sure-footed MLS rookie from Escondido, scored his 10th goal in just 14 matches this season off a headed pass from Valakari, completing a sequence begun by Bombino\u2019s pinpointed crossing pass after the 18-year-old collected a long pass from Anders Dreyer.<\/p>\n
The clean finish by Iloski moved him past Dreyer for the team lead in goals.<\/p>\n
Bombino, obtained in February from LAFC, left-footed a backward header by Tverskov, tying the score at 2-2 early in the second half.<\/p>\n
A delicate chipped pass by Hirving \u201cChucky\u201d Lozano, who entered in the 56th minute, in his second game since suffering a second hamstring injury this season, led to SDFC\u2019s final goal \u2014 Valakari\u2019s deflection of Dreyer\u2019s shot in the 67th minute.<\/p>\n
San Diego FC will resume play Saturday with a road match against Chicago. Before then, coach Mikey Varas and squad will attempt to learn from several defensive breakdowns that, exploited by opportunistic Houston, showed how vulnerable a first-place team can be.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: July 5, 2025 at 10:26 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If San Diego FC had any doubts that staying on top of the Major League Soccer Western Conference…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42645,"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-42644","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\/114804770958098533","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42644","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=42644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}