San Diego FC drops final regular-season home match, 1-0 to San Jose

SAN DIEGO -- Fan Appreciation Night for San Diego FC’s final regular-season home game ends in a 1-0 Snapdragon Stadium loss, falling short of the California sweep in 2025 after being downed by the San Jose Earthquakes. 

SDFC was back at home for its final regular-season home match in its inaugural season, not only looking to keep pace at the top of the conference but to complete the California sweep against the in-state rivals.  

Saturday's game came with a looming winless period in the MLS for SDFC, as they last gained all three points in their home stadium back on July 25 in a 1-0 victory over Nashville. 

SDFC star forwards early connection almost gave the homeside the very early lead, with Anders Dreyer’s long over-the-top ball for Chucky Lozano in behind the Quakes’ backline saw him one-on-one with San Jose goalkeeper Daniel.

Lozano's 3-minute chip attempt over the closing out Daniel went just wide off target, as the early chance wasn’t converted, and the game remained scoreless.

After a threatening attack sequence by SDFC, the Quakes regained possession and had their own dangerous counterattack, with San Jose forwards Cristian Arango and Josef Martínez linking up to give their squad the opening goal and lead in the match.

Arango drove at SDFC defenders after collecting the ball near midfield, as he slipped Josef Martínez in through on goal inside the box. Off a first-time left-footed strike, Martínez got his shot past the fingertips of SDFC goalkeeper CJ dos Santos and into the net for the 1-0 goal in the 14-minute.

In the 37-minute, another SDFC shot with Quakes goalkeeper Daniel off his line went just wide, this time from midfielder Onni Valakari after being served a pass on a platter by defender Christopher McVey.

In front of the goal with only two San Jose defenders left on the goal line, Valakari squandered his chance to level the match right before the halftime break, misplacing his attempt wide right of the goal with the goalkeeper scrambling back to his net. 

The struggles of SDFC wrote the story for the first half, with the lack of a consistent finishing touch in their dominant ball style mixed with their highline being targeted by counterplay saw the home team down 1-0 going into the second 45 minutes.

SDFC’s biggest chance in the second half came in the 67-minute, with Chucky Lozano bringing down an over-the-top pass into the penalty box but being denied with Quakes goalkeeper Daniel making the sacrifice and stretching save to keep the lead.

The Azul y Chrome continued to push and create more chances in search of an equalizer, but it wasn’t their night as the visiting Quakes kept the clean sheet and took the 1-0 win on the road. 

San Diego FC head coach Mikey Varas spoke at the post-match press conference on the performance by his squad against San Jose and the improvements they’ll look to make with the playoffs approaching.

“Just really disappointed not to get the three points. At home for the fans, they were great, as usual. We can feel their support so clearly. But I think at the end of the day, if we take that game picture, we'll take that game picture more often than not.”

“But it comes down to details, and right now, we know all of us will be putting our heads together and look in the mirror to discover what little things we can do to make sure we hit our stride. Because if we hit our stride, I think we're going to be quite dangerous.”

“But it's not that the team is playing bad at home. We create a lot of chances. We dominate large portions of the game. We don't give up a lot of chances. Usually, you take all of those ingredients in a game.”

“The most important thing right now is to maintain calm, know that we're a good team. We have good players. We work really hard and finding that little extra that we need to make sure that we turn these into not just good, statistically speaking, performances, but wins.”

The 1-0 Saturday night loss to the San Jose Earthquakes leaves SDFC unable to complete the perfect California sweep, finishing its inaugural 2025 MLS season with five wins and a loss against LA Galaxy, LAFC, and the Quakes.

As for the overall home record after all 17 home league games completed, SDFC finished its inaugural season with seven wins, five losses, and five draws at Snapdragon Stadium. 

“We know, we are aware that it's been some time since our last win,” SDFC captain and midfielder Jeppe Tverskov said on his team's winless period at home. “I feel like a lot of the performances we have been playing here on the pitch has been quite good. I think today also we play quite fine.”

Although unable to collect points, SDFC still sat at the top of the MLS Western Conference standings, equal on points with Vancouver at 57, as SDFC holds the tiebreaker.

SDFC will be back at Snapdragon Stadium for postseason action, having sealed home-field advantage for Round One of the 2025 MLS playoffs.

Road games are all that remain for SDFC to close out their final two regular-season matches, as they head to Houston next Saturday for their next league match.

SDFC will seek revenge against the Houston Dynamo in their Oct. 4 visit to Shell Energy Stadium, having lost to them in a 4-3 goalfest at home in their first meeting on July 5.