Expansion club San Diego riding high as Sporting KC arrives

There is precedent for an expansion team enjoying early success in MLS, but it doesn’t make what San Diego FC are doing any less impressive.

A 2-0 home win Wednesday night over the Colorado Rapids improved San Diego to 7-4-2, good for 23 points and second place in the Western Conference table.

San Diego will attempt to add three more points to its total on Saturday night when it welcomes Sporting Kansas City to town.

San Diego’s third straight win featured goals by Christopher McVey and Anders Dreyer as well as a solid defensive performance. Goalie CJ dos Santos erased the mistakes that gave Colorado scoring chances, most notably in the 73rd minute when he denied Djordje Mihailovic’s penalty kick.

“A massive performance by the boys,” said San Diego coach Mikey Varas. “For me, it was just a complete performance. It’s an example of what we can be and we have to enjoy that.”

Dreyer has a team-high six goals for San Diego, which boasts a top 10 offense and defense with a 25-16 goal differential. It’s trying to emulate the 2023 St. Louis squad that won the West table in its first year.

While San Diego is flying high, Sporting KC (3-8-2, 11 points) is hoping to gain momentum from rallying for a 2-2 draw Wednesday night in St. Louis. Down 2-0 in the 70th minute, they rallied with markers from Tim Leibold and Dejan Joveljic to salvage an unlikely point.

“Although things at different points in the game weren’t going our way, we never gave up,” said Sporting KC interim coach Kerry Zavagnin.

The club is 3-3-1 since Zavagnin took over from Peter Vermes in late March. Sporting KC have been much more dynamic offensively with 13 goals since the coaching change, but could stand to tighten things up in its end of the field. They’re next-to-last in MLS defensively, yielding 24 goals.

Joveljic (six goals) and Daniel Salloi (four) have accounted for more than half the team’s goals.

–Field Level Media