San Diego FC’s incredible dream of an inaugural season ending in a championship lives on.
On Monday night, SDFC defeated Minnesota United FC 1-0 to advance to the MLS Western Conference finals before a sold-out Snapdragon Stadium crowd of more than 32,000 fans.
Star right wing Anders Dreyer scored the winning—and only – goal of the match in the 72nd minute when he buried a left-footed shot from the right side of the box to the top right corner of the net. Teammate Corey Baird was credited with the assist.
“We worked on some things (in practice) and I feel the boys executed really well,” head
coach Mikey Varas later said. “This narrative that the other team is the harder working team is garbage. This team is a hard-working team.”
SDFC is now just the second MLS team in more than 25 years to reach the conference
finals in its first year of existence, with the first being the Chicago Fire, who won the MLS Cup in 1998.
“These guys continue to write history,” Varas said of his team.
Despite some spirited back and forth during the first 45 minutes, the match went into halftime a 0-0 tie.
San Diego dominated possession during the first 45 minutes, maintaining the ball
79% of the time. SDFC had 393 first-half passes, compared to just 96 for Minnesota.
SDFC also had more shot attempts (six) than the opponent (four), but committed more fouls
(seven to Minnesota’s six). For the full match, San Diego maintained possession for 71% of the match, but lost the battle of shot attempts, with Minnesota’s 11 outpacing SDFC by two.
Minnesota came out more aggressive in the second half and very early on produced some
shots on goal, but none were converted. One near goal was stopped by a miraculous, sliding save at the goal line by SDFC defenseman Ian Pilcher in the 47th minute.
San Diego benefitted from stellar play by backup goalkeeper Pablo Sisneiga, who became a starter after regular keeper CJ dos Santos suffered a broken cheekbone earlier in the playoffs.
Sisneiga had a number of highlight reel-type saves throughout the second half — including one in the 64th minute. Minnesota had four shots on goal in the final 45 minutes.
“He put up a fiery performance, which is what you want from your goalkeeper,” Varas said.
Before Monday, San Diego and Minnesota had faced off twice in San Diego’s short history,
which each club winning once. In a mid-September match at Snapdragon Stadium, Minnesota scored three goals late in the second half en route to a 3-1 victory.
Before that, SDFC came from behind to win 4-2 on the road during the first-ever match
between the sides back in June.
Once again, star attacking midfielder Hirving “Chucky” Lozano was not in the starting lineup,
but did play in the second half, coming in at the 78 th minute to replace left wing Amahl
Pellegrino.
Lozano, who had been called up to play for the Mexican national team recently, suffered a
hamstring injury just before halftime in a match between Mexico and Uruguay last week and did not play in the following match against Paraguay two days later.
He showed no ill effects Monday night however, and even got into a shoving match with an
opposing player that was quickly broken up by the officials.
San Diego FC now faces the Vancouver Whitecaps in the Western Conference finals, with the match scheduled for 6 pm Saturday at Snapdragon Stadium. The winner advances to the MLS Cup, which is set for Dec. 6 against the Eastern Conference Finals winner.
The Eastern Conference finals pit New York City FC against Inter Miami CF, which features one of the greatest footballers of all time in Lionel Messi.
“This whole season has been amazing,” team captain Jeppe Tverskov said during the post-
match press conference. “We’ve had a good season, but we want more.”
During the regular season, SDFC and the Whitecaps battled to a 1-1 draw on July 19 at San
Diego, while SDFC won 5-3 on June 25 at Vancouver.
Both games were played, however, before Vancouver signed Thomas Müller, one of the most decorated German players of all time. He propelled Vancouver to the near the top of the regular season standings once he came onboard in early August.
Notes: SDFC announced its 2026 regular season schedule on Thursday. Next season kicks
off Feb. 21 with a home match against CF Montreal and ends at home with a Nov. 7 versus
Sporting Kansas City. Like all MLS teams, San Diego will play 34 matches next season, 17 at
home and on the road. SDFC’s conference and geographic rivals LAFC and LA Galaxy play in
San Diego on May 2 and Aug. 29, respectively.
SDFC travels to Miami to to face Messi and Inter Miami on Sept. 20. But Messi’s squad is not scheduled to play in San Diego during the regular season.
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