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The Major League Soccer scheduling gods finally did San Diego FC a solid, sending the ultimate slumpbuster to Snapdragon Stadium in the midst of a 10-game winless streak.
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Austin FC is a tough out at home, losing only one of six games this season.
Not so much on the road, where they dropped to 0-5-3 after SDFC did what it hasn’t in more than two months and actually won a game, 5-0 on Wednesday night in the kind of dominant display that took them to the Western Conference final last season.
The only negative is that more people didn’t see it. The crowd for the weeknight 6:30 p.m. kickoff – announced at a generous 19,194 – was the smallest for an MLS game at 35,000-capacity Snapdragon Stadium in the club’s two-year history by nearly 3,000.
But they won’t quibble. A performance like this had been bubbling for weeks, even if the results didn’t reflect it.
Their last win in any competition: 3-2 against Toluca on March 11 in the CONCACAF Champions Cup.
Their last MLS win: 1-0 against Sporting KC on March 7.
“We’re building momentum, we need to take all the things that we’re doing,” coach Mikey Varas said in the run-up to Wednesday’s game. “We’re doing well in terms of playing with more tempo, with a consistent intensity, getting good pressure on the ball.
“I think our pressing has been really good. We’re starting to protect the space in behind better. We’re managing the transition better, so you don’t see as many big transitions conceded. And now it’s just about going there with that feeling that we can put it together for 90-plus, however many minutes.”
And they did, scoring twice in the opening 17 minutes with savvy ball possession followed by incisive passes in the final third.
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It was 1-0 after eight minutes on an intricate sequence from Luca Bombino to Marcus Ingvartsen to Onni Valikari to David Vazquez, who lunged for the ball with Austin defender Jon Gallagher and watched it fortuitously roll into the net. After examining replays, the 20-year-old Vazquez was awarded his first career MLS goal instead of it being deemed an own-goal.
Anders Dreyer made it 2-0 just nine minutes later with the kind of skill that’s come to be expected from the league’s 2025 MLS Newcomer of the Year. Dreyer received a pass in the right channel, cut back onto his preferred left foot and curled a low shot into the far-left corner.
Midfielder Pedro Soma, a 19-year-old starting for the first time since March, made it 3-0 with a long-range blast from the left side early in the second half. Ingvartsen made it 4-0 in the 80th minute, and Vazquez scored his second goal in injury time to round out the scoring.
In all, through injuries and midweek rest for veterans, Varas started five players who are 20 or younger.
The defensive lapses that have plagued SDFC all season reappeared twice in the first half, but Austin was unable to convert either – the first thwarted by a kick save from 19-year-old goalkeeper Duran Ferree, the second when Austin forward Myrto Uzuni couldn’t get on the end of a cross in front of an open net.
SDFC has two more home games – Saturday against FC Cincinnati and May 23 against the Vancouver Whitecaps – before the MLS takes a seven-week break for the World Cup. Over the ensuing two months, they play only one MLS game at home, July 25 against FC Dallas.
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This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 9:13 PM.