<\/p>\n
San Antonio FC forward Santiago Patino dribbles controls the ball during a match against\u00a0El Paso Locomotive\u00a0FC on Saturday, August. 15, 2026, at Toyota Field in San Antonio. El Paso shut out SAFC 3-0.<\/p>\n
Darren Abate\/USL Championship<\/p>\n
El Paso Locomotive\u00a0FC handed a sluggish San Antonio FC squad its worst home loss of the season, beating SAFC 3-0 on Saturday at Toyota Field.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Locomotive scored all three of their goals in the first half, including two in a five-minute span, as\u00a0SAFC dropped only its second game in USL Championship league play at home. It was the first home loss in which SAFC lost by three goals and the third time in league play it has been shutout at Toyota Field, with the previous shutouts 0-0 draws to Miami FC and Monterey Bay FC.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
El Paso (9-7-4, 31 points) ended a three-game losing streak against San Antonio (8-4-8, 32 points), reclaiming the\u00a0Copa Tejas trophy on aggregate goals. The clubs split their matches, with SAFC winning the first game 3-2 in El Paso in April. \u00a0SAFC won the trophy last year when it swept its intrastate rival, concluding with a 5-2 win in the regular season finale last October.<\/p>\n
SAFC midfielder Curt Calov said the team made too many mistakes in the match, which included errant passes, one of which led to an El Paso goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest takeaway was just shooting ourselves in the foot,\u201d\u00a0Calov said. \u201cCouple of mishaps, that was really the telltale tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The El Paso match ended a busy week for\u00a0SAFC, which was playing in its third match in eight days, which included a 1-1 draw on the road last week to Louisville City FC and a 2-1 win three days ago against Miami FC in the quarterfinals of Prinx Tires USL Cup, a victory which advanced San Antonio to the cup semifinals.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
San Antonio FC midfielder Curt Calov dribbles the ball during a match against\u00a0El Paso Locomotive\u00a0FC on Saturday, August. 15, 2026, at Toyota Field in San Antonio. El Paso shut out SAFC 3-0.<\/p>\n
Darren Abate\/USL Championship<\/p>\n
Calov alluded to fatigue as possibly one factor for SAFC\u2019s bad performance at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely uncharacteristic, especially for this team and this defense,\u201d\u00a0Calov said. \u201cWe keep adding shutouts (on defense) and today was an exception. I think you have fatigue \u2014 maybe a part of it \u2014 but we\u2019re on our home field. We know it\u2019s not acceptable. This is our place to defend, and we have to get results here.\u201d<\/p>\n
El Paso scored its first goal off the strong leg of midfielder Alex\u00a0Mendez, who stunned the home crowd of 7,742 when he launched a shot way outside the penalty box which curved into the right corner of the net in the 20th minute.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Mendez earned the brace when he scored in the 39th minute, intercepting an errant SAFC pass he converted into a goal. Five minutes later, Bryant Farkarlun tapped in a goal off a crossing pass from Amando Moreno along the end line in the 44th minute. The play started off another intercepted pass by El Paso.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally bad first half,\u201d SAFC coach Carlos Llamosa said. \u201cAfter the second goal, the team went down mentally. We didn\u2019t have a response for that second goal. The best thing that could happen was the referee calling the halftime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite outshooting El Paso 12-11, including 9-4 in shots on goal,\u00a0SAFC just couldn\u2019t get the ball in the net. SAFC had two good chances in the second half to get back in the match, including a Santiago Patino shot that missed to the left of the goal and a Nelson Flores Blanco goal which didn\u2019t count because he was called offside.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecond half, we came back with better energy, tried to control the ball, create chances,\u201d\u00a0Llamosa said. \u201cWe had one or two good chances to come back and score. We missed those. It wasn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
With the loss,\u00a0SAFC dropped from second to third in the USL Western Conference table, while El Paso leapfrogged from sixth to fourth in the Western standings.<\/p>\n
SAFC has a week to rest up before hosting Oakland Roots SC at 8 p.m. Saturday at Toyota Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio FC forward Santiago Patino dribbles controls the ball during a match against\u00a0El Paso Locomotive\u00a0FC on Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-407943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}