There are still nine games remaining in the Major League Soccer regular season, and nine of 15 teams in each conference make the postseason. And in the Western Conference, 11 teams are separated by a mere 13 points in the standings.<\/p>\n
So to say San Diego FC\u2019s playoff hopes are slipping away, factually at least, is premature.<\/p>\n
The eye test, though, says something else.<\/p>\n
SDFC dropped a second straight home game, this time (yes) 5-0 against the surging Philadelphia Union and 16-year-old phenom Cavan Sullivan before an announced crowd of 21,171 at Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the most lopsided defeat in the club\u2019s two-year history, surpassing the 4-0 loss in March.<\/p>\n
That was on the road against two-time defending Mexican champion Toluca at 8,750 feet. This was at home at sea level against a team that opened the MLS season with six straight losses and fired the coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started the match pretty well and maybe could have been up at least 1-0, maybe 2-0,\u201d said coach Mikey Varas, whose team benefitted from a video review overturning a red card against midfielder Alejandro Alvarado late in the first half. \u201cAll of a sudden, the team collapsed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an unacceptable situation, an unacceptable result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added captain Jeppe Tverskov: \u201cRight now, it\u2019s not clicking. That\u2019s obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the second time in five days the azul and chrome have gone down 3-nil, and the second time in five days that their usually faithful fans have booed them, just as they did in the first half of Wednesday\u2019s 3-2 loss against the San Jose Earthquakes, a team on an eight-game winless streak.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia entered the night in ninth place in the Eastern Conference with 30 points, the same position and points as SDFC in the West. That\u2019s where the similarities end.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s win extended the Union\u2019s unbeaten streak to 10. The last four, all victories, have been by a combined 15-1.<\/p>\n
SDFC has now lost three straight by a combined 9-2 in the stretch run of a tight playoff race.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are two things,\u201d Varas said. \u201cOne, when we don\u2019t follow our principles and don\u2019t play to our strengths, which is our style of play, and we start doing random things. The other one, which is even more important, is when we don\u2019t fight and we don\u2019t run and we get outworked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe foundation of anything in life if you want to be successful is hard work, commitment, pushing harder than someone else. It hurts a lot. It\u2019s not who we are. You can say it\u2019s a blip on the radar, but we take these blips very seriously. We need to self-correct very quickly, because it\u2019s unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hosts had the bulk of the possession through the opening 40 minutes, but the visitors gradually worked their way into the match and created the better chances until breaking through in first-half stoppage time with the kind of sublime skill that has people drooling over Sullivan, who, incredibly, doesn\u2019t turn 17 for another two weeks.<\/p>\n
Indiana Vassilev streamed down the left side and played a ball into the box to Sullivan, who blindly backheeled it diagonally toward goal. The ball rolled to the back post, kissed off it and nestled into the net.<\/p>\n
\u201cEver since they got the goal, it was basically downhill from there,\u201d Tverskov said. \u201cConcede and concede and concede.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sullivan, who has a deal in place to join English giant Manchester City when he turns 18 next year, made it 2-0 in the 62nd minute. His tight-angled shot from the left side went through the legs of goalkeeper Duran Ferree, starting because regular CJ dos Santos was serving a red-card suspension from Wednesday against San Jose.<\/p>\n
The Union got another goal six minutes later from Bruno Damiani, another in the 87th minute on an own-goal on a header by SDFC midfielder Anibal Godoy and another in stoppage time from 18-year-old rookie Malik Jakupovic.<\/p>\n
The referee mercifully blew the final whistle immediately afterward, and the boos came raining down. As SDFC players walked toward what was left of the supporters\u2019 section to thank them, one fan extended his arms with both thumbs down.<\/p>\n
Milan Iloski, the San Pasqual High School alum who spent three tantalizing months with SDFC last season (and scored 10 goals in a mere 14 appearances), started up top for Philadelphia and nearly had a hat trick despite not scoring. His point-blank shot was deflected wide by an SDFC defender, he was poised to tap in Sullivan\u2019s first goal when the ball hit the post first, and he had a hard shot in the second half bang off the crossbar.<\/p>\n
SDFC (8-11-6) remains in ninth place in the Western Conference through 25 of 34 matches, which gets it into a play-in game \u2013 the winner of which plays at the conference champion a few days later.<\/p>\n
But the LA Galaxy also have 30 points. Real Salt Lake, Minnesota United and Austin FC have 29 (and RSL has played one less match). Seattle sits in 14th place with 28 points but has played two fewer matches.<\/p>\n
A bigger problem is SDFC\u2019s schedule. Only three of its remaining nine MLS matches are at home, although given its recent form at Snapdragon Stadium, it might be better off on the road.<\/p>\n
Next up is Wednesday night\u2019s friendly against Mexico\u2019s Tijuana Xolos in the Baja Cup, a game kept on the schedule despite the teams meeting here last month in the Leagues Cup between MLS and Liga MX.<\/p>\n
Neither club is expected to use regulars (Tijuana\u2019s coach has hinted he\u2019ll play mostly youngsters). Fans almost certainly won\u2019t see Xolos 17-year-old star Gilberto Mora, who was injured in their last league match.<\/p>\n
And SDFC likely will be resting players for Sunday\u2019s cross-country date at Inter Miami and Lionel Messi. Following that, it plays at Austin and the New York Red Bulls. The next MLS home match isn\u2019t until Oct. 14 against Houston.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take full responsibility at the end of the day,\u201d Varas said. \u201cIt\u2019s my job to get the group ready to play, and for whatever reason, this group has not found any consistency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I can promise is we\u2019re going to go back the drawing board and we\u2019re going to make the environment even more competitive because these guys have to fight for their lives if they want to be here. They have to show a lot more emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are still nine games remaining in the Major League Soccer regular season, and nine of 15 teams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,74,1254,76,75,1083,127],"class_list":["post-463127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-fc","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463127","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=463127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}