{"id":434462,"date":"2026-08-16T10:26:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T10:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/434462\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T10:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T10:26:16","slug":"dreyer-san-diego-snatch-socal-bragging-rights-over-lafc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/434462\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreyer, San Diego snatch SoCal bragging rights over LAFC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few things are certain in sport. But for now, it seems like San Diego FC<\/a> making life difficult for LAFC<\/a> is one of them.<\/p>\n

The Chrome-and-Azul earned a hard-fought 1-0 win<\/a> over their Southern California foes, grabbing all three points at BMO Stadium for the second straight season and improving their all-time MLS record vs. the Black & Gold to 3W-0L-1D.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Saturday’s dramatic result came v\u00eda an 89th-minute penalty-kick winner from\u00a0Anders Dreyer.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just focused on a really complete performance against a top team,\u201d head coach Mikey Varas said postgame.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is high-level football at its best. You go away to LA with all the firepower they have, and you\u2019re going to concede chances. You\u2019re going to concede momentum at times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Statement win<\/p>\n

After setting a nearly impossibly high bar during a historic 2025 MLS expansion season, San Diego have experienced plenty of ups and downs in year two.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Entering Saturday\u2019s meeting with LAFC, the expectation was that LAFC \u2013 riding an eight-game unbeaten run across all competitions dating back to before the 2026 FIFA World Cup<\/a> break \u2013 would take care of business at home.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not how it went. San Diego contained LAFC\u2019s superstar duo of\u00a0Son Heung-Min<\/a> and Denis Bouanga<\/a>, and when the visitors were awarded a late penalty following Video Review, Dreyer got the job done.<\/p>\n

The 2025 MLS Newcomer of the Year now has 2g\/4a in four all-time meetings against LAFC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Defensively, goalkeeper CJ Dos Santos<\/a> stepped up with three huge saves. The Philadelphia native, fresh off a World Cup trip as Cape Verde\u2019s backup goalkeeper, has been a revelation in recent weeks, starting every game since the league\u2019s return to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about taking it one day at a time, one game at a time, one training session at a time, one rep at a time,\u201d Dos Santos said. \u201cThat\u2019s the most important thing. We don\u2019t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.<\/p>\n

“We know what our objectives are, we know what our goals are, and we\u2019re going to do everything possible to make them come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Positive momentum<\/p>\n

Saturday’s win has bigger implications for San Diego than bragging rights over arguably California\u2019s most stacked roster.<\/p>\n

It brings them within one point of the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs and could give them the confidence to push on towards a postseason return after reaching last year’s Western Conference Final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With new Designated Player winger Elias Achouri<\/a> also coming off the bench to make his debut, the tide certainly seems to be turning for San Diego – even with Dreyer’s late sending off for a second yellow card.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a game where you could see that everybody was committed to doing the dirty work and making sure we did whatever was possible to win the game, while still looking like us,\u201d Varas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely a game we can build on and use as inspiration to recognize what we can do, because we know we can still take steps forward as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few things are certain in sport. But for now, it seems like San Diego FC making life difficult…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[172508,11413,74,1254,76,75,6532],"class_list":["post-434462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-lafcvssd-08-15-2026","tag-match-reaction","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-fc","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sendtonews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434462","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=434462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}