{"id":421952,"date":"2026-08-02T19:43:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T19:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421952\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T19:43:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T19:43:44","slug":"el-farolito-wins-national-title-short-on-rest-and-2200-miles-from-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421952\/","title":{"rendered":"El Farolito wins national title \u2014\u00a0short on rest and 2,200 miles from San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three games in 24 hours last week. A cup already won in Milwaukee. A cross-country flight that landed two days before kickoff. None of it slowed El Farolito\u2019s soccer team<\/a> down.<\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s \u201cBurrito Boys\u201d beat Bristol Rhythm AFC 3-0 on Saturday night in Bristol, Va., to win the National Premier Soccer League for the second time in three seasons \u2014 something no club has done in the league\u2019s 23-year history. It was El Farolito\u2019s third consecutive trip to the final \u2014 also a first \u2014 and a return to form after last year\u2019s 3-2 loss to Hickory FC at Kezar Stadium.<\/a><\/p>\n

Bristol, unbeaten and roared on by a record crowd of 2,159, came out swinging \u2014 four first-half shots on goal \u2014 but never solved keeper Julian Escobar. El Farolito answered the only way it knows how: pass, pass, pass, dragging the Rhythm around the pitch until its players\u2019 legs went. Direct when it mattered, composed in the final third, El Farolito went into the break level only because Bristol\u2019s Golden Glove keeper Noe Delmotte kept pulling out saves.<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t hold on forever. Two minutes into the second half, coach Santiago L\u00f3pez\u2019s super sub Kipre Sacre \u2014 on to find a spark, delivering a fire \u2014 rose to head home a Jonathan Valdivia cross.<\/p>\n

Then came the turn. Bristol\u2019s Patrick Enchill was sent off, and while the Rhythm were still remonstrating over the call, El Farolito simply carried on playing. Off another Valdivia delivery, Dembor Bengtson rolled free through the middle and finished for 2-0 in the 59th \u2014 his 17th goal of the season, enough to claim the NPSL Golden Boot outright after entering the day tied at 16.<\/p>\n

Sacre sealed his brace in stoppage time, converting Valdivia\u2019s third assist of the night. Man of the Match honors, and the best moment of his career, in his words: \u201cMy coach told me I had to score, and that\u2019s what I tried to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is simply who El Farolito is now \u2014 perennial contenders, the big fish in the NPSL pond, a squad of veterans who have known the ball since the cradle and one another for years, with L\u00f3pez in his 16th season at the helm.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past four years I\u2019ve kept the same core together,\u201d L\u00f3pez told NPSL.com after the game. \u201cWe\u2019re like a family now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three games in 24 hours last week. A cup already won in Milwaukee. A cross-country flight that landed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[168481,101,103,102,104,106,105,1083],"class_list":["post-421952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-el-farolito-sc","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}