San Diego FC has entered its longest stretch between Major League Soccer matches.
Time for a well-earned rest?
Of course not.
For MLS teams, the games never vanish for long. Starting Tuesday night, San Diego FC will play three matches in eight days against Mexican teams in the Leagues Cup. Though all three matches will be in Mission Valley, reducing some of the strain, the club’s leaders must also be mindful of a high-stakes MLS season that resumes Aug. 9 in Kansas City.
With nine regular-season games left, coach Mikey Varas’ team is 14-7-4, good for first place in Major League Soccer’s 15-team Western Conference. If the season ended today, SDFC would earn a first-round playoff bye with its sights set on making history. Just one MLS expansion team, the Chicago Fire, has won the MLS Cup. And that was in 1998.
So with that high standard in mind, I’m going to be tough on SDFC here.
For the San Diego newbies go the distance — and snagging that first-round bye would help — they’ll need to get more offense from their center forwards. It’s the position formerly played by Milan Iloski, who was leading the team in goals when a financial impasse sent him back to Denmark this month.
Iloski’s departure wasn’t anyone’s fault. If anything, SDFC took a goal-scoring hit for being too good at its job. Because he blossomed with SDFC, scoring 10 goals in just 14 matches, Iloski improved his earning power at the sport’s most expensive position.
What has this divorce wrought for SDFC? Mixed results, but also a flashing yellow light on the dashboard.
The team’s defense has improved. Opponents have scored just three goals in the four matches since Iloski was removed from the starting lineup in the middle of contract negotiations. Friday’s 1-0 victory over Nashville SC at Snapdragon Stadium marked SDFC’s first shutout in eight games. Iloski’s replacement, Tomás Ángel, deserves some credit for the defense’s gains. “He’s doing a tremendous job pressing,” Varas said of the energetic Colombian.
The team’s success rate has held up without the 25-year-old Iloski. SDFC’s 2-1-1 record and seven points post-Milan nearly equals the club’s points-per-match rate and 8-5-1 record with him.
It’s not easy to quantify how fans of San Diego FC are coping with Iloski’s departure. Not only was the striker fun to watch, he was one of their own, having grown up in Escondido before starring at UCLA.
As Manny Machado noted, the divorce stung many fans.
“Kind of sucks,” said the Padres star, an SDFC investor, after the financial impasse first hit.
Yet SDFC continues to draw announced crowds of about 28,000 per match, putting them fourth out of 30 MLS clubs in average attendance. Team captain Jeppe Tverskov said visitors from Denmark this month told him the crowds here greatly impressed them.
Denmark loves soccer, but it’s not a huge country. The turnout Sunday in Denmark for Iloski’s return match? An announced 6,711 at 9,800-seat Right to Dream Park in Farum. Iloski’s club, FJ Nordsjælland, lost 1-0 to Brondby.
Where Iloski’s absence has exacted the largest toll, as you’d expect, is on SDFC’s offense.
The attack hasn’t been as good as when Iloski provided crisp finishes and efficient movements away from the ball.
SDFC scored two goals in a 2-1 win over the Chicago Fire with Iloski sidelined. The club has scored just two combined goals in the three matches since his departure became official.
Back when the offense was humming, the team had four games with two goals, two games with three goals and outbursts of four and five goals. As part of his surreal stretch, Iloski scored four goals in just 12 minutes.
Ángel, 22, has been a useful player dating to the season’s opener, when his deft pass set up a goal. He has three goals and two assists this season. There have been no goals or assists from him, though, in the four matches since he replaced Ilsoki at the center forward or “9” position atop the offense.
It’s prime real estate. The wings who typically flank SDFC’s “9” are stars Hirving “Chucky” Lozano and Anders Dreyer. The league’s assists leader with 14, Dreyer clicked often with Iloski.
Varas acknowledged Ángel’s goal-and-assist drought of late.
“Any No. 9 wants to get into more dangerous positions to help impact the goal,” the coach said, “but what I will say is, he’s still adding a lot to the team. In terms of just that energy that he brings and really mature and disciplined defending. As strange as that sounds to say about a number nine, but that’s important.”
SDFC has a true center forward in Marcus Ingvartsen, 29. But injuries have sidelined the 6-foot-1 1/2 Dane twice this season for more than a month, and Varas hasn’t said when he expects him to return. Ángel stands to gain the most from the Leagues Cup matches. Monday, the team signed a pair of midfielders to help navigate the next three matches, at least.
Led by sporting director Tyler Heaps, Varas, Dreyer and Tverskov, SDFC has solved numerous challenges this season.
A new one has arisen going into the club’s final nine MLS regular-season matches: get more offense out of the center forward position.
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