By Mark Zeigler | [email protected] | The San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego FC opens the Major League Soccer playoffs on Sunday night at Snapdragon Stadium, for Game 1 of a best-of-three series against the Portland Timbers.
SDFC was the first MLS club to clinch a playoff spot, ultimately finishing first in the Western Conference and getting home-field advantage through the conference finals. Portland was eighth and needed to win a play-in game on Wednesday night just to get here.
SDFC won 4-0 at Portland just last weekend in the regular-season finale, and the Timbers are coming off a mid-week game and has to travel.
And they have the 24th-ranked offense in MLS. And only two wins in the last three months. And are eight days removed from expletive-laced chants from their supporters' group and calls for coach Phil Neville's immediate dismissal.
How hard can this be?
Hard, history tells us. As successful as MLS expansion teams have been during their inaugural seasons, they have struggled in the playoffs, a relatively unique concept for the rest of the soccer world.
SDFC became the sixth of the last 10 expansion teams to qualify for the playoffs in their first year. None of the previous five, however, has survived the opening round, including three that were the better seed.
The cautionary tale is St. Louis City. The club was the top seed in the Western Conference in 2023 and lost 4-1 and 2-1 to Sporting Kansas City in the best-of-three first round after Kansas City advanced from the play-in game in a penalty shootout.
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"I always say, this is a different tournament now," said 35-year-old SDFC midfielder Anibal Godoy, a veteran of 11 MLS seasons. "Playoffs are totally different, and we have to be ready, mentally more importantly. ... We beat them 4-0 away, but the playoffs are a different tournament. We have to forget what we did in the past and try to be focused on Sunday."
Complicating SDFC's journey is that they have home-field advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs, and home field has not been much of an advantage. SDFC has won just one of its last seven at Snapdragon Stadium (two ties, four losses), and that was back on July 25.
On the road? An MLS record 12 wins and unbeaten in their last 11 (nine wins, two losses).
And only one of a possible five Western Conference playoff games -- Nov. 1 at Portland's Providence Park -- would be on the road.
"It's a long time since we won at home," winger Anders Dreyer said after a lackluster 1-0 loss against San Jose Earthquakes in the regular-season home finale on Sept. 27. "We know it in the dressing room as well. I hope it's because we save it for the playoffs."
The other complication: After playing 20 different teams through the eight-month MLS regular season, SDFC will face the same opponent in at least three straight games and possibly four if the first-round series goes the distance -- a rarity in soccer. That puts a premium on tactical adjustments and positional matchups.
The Timbers are also equipped with the free-wheeling, swing-for-the-fences, nothing-to-lose mentality.
Eight days earlier, the 4-0 loss in the rain at Providence Park was greeted with showers of boos (and worse). Neville opened his post-game news conference: "I'll start by saying that's a massively disappointing night. I think we owe the supporters an apology for that."
But after come-to-Jesus meetings the following day, the Timbers took the field for the play-in game against Real Salt Lake on Wednesday and produced a 3-1 win that included a pair of goals from forward Felipe Mora, his first in nearly three months.
"We've got to go into the playoffs and deliver," Neville said of only their second win since July 25. "You look at our performance tonight, I've got a team that can deliver on the big occasion. That gives me real confidence for the next, hopefully two -- maybe three -- games."
It makes for a compelling series, the struggling club that thinks it magically found something against the conference champion that has struggled at home. The established MLS club that hasn't made the playoffs since 2021 against the expansion outfit that made it in its first season.
"I feel like the mood is great," SDFC captain Jeppe Tverskov said. "We feel like everything starts now. Usually when everybody talks about the last game of the regular season, for me personally, sometimes you get the feeling of getting drained a little bit because you see the end. But right now, nobody has that feeling because we feel everything is starting.