San Diego FC's late-game scars are starting to look like growing pains
San Diego FC did not lose last Saturday night.
It only felt like it.
Up next is a trip to Seattle (6-1-2), where San Diego will try to carry the best parts of its 2-2 draw against LAFC into one of the toughest road environments in Major League Soccer.
"We're focused on a strong road performance against a very good team," SDFC coach Mikey Varas said. "To take what we've done in the last couple games, especially the last game for 66, 70 minutes at a very high level and extend it to 90."
That, increasingly, is the issue. For most of last Saturday's draw, San Diego looked like a team ready to climb out of its springtime rut.
The club was organized, assertive and dangerous in possession. Anders Dreyer created. Marcus Ingvartsen finished. The back line did enough to keep one of MLS' most dangerous clubs in check.
Then the match reached the place where SDFC’s season keeps fraying: winning time.
San Diego (3-5-3) led 2-0 until the 82nd minute, when Denis Bouanga pulled LAFC back into the match. Then, in the 14th minute of stoppage time, Ryan Hollingshead finished off a corner-kick sequence and turned what should have been a badly needed SDFC win into another late-game lesson.
Hollingshead's equalizer, scored at 90+14, is tied for the third-latest stoppage-time goal in MLS history, behind Tom Barlow's 90+17 goal for the New York Red Bulls in 2023 and Mateusz Bogusz's 90+15 goal for Houston in March.
The 2-2 draw halted San Diego's five-match losing streak in MLS play, but stretched its winless run across all competitions to nine matches. It also continued a pattern that has become too obvious to ignore.
SDFC is playing well enough to be in games. It is not finishing enough of them.
"We can't hide from it," Varas said. "We need to close both halves better.”
Midfielder Aníbal Godoy, the acting captain while Jeppe Tverskov is injured, put it plainly.
"I think we have to be more focused in the detail," Godoy said. "Not only in the last five minutes, the last 15 minutes the last two games, we lose a little bit of control of the game.
"We play against really good teams, LAFC and Portland. They have really good players, and you have to be more focused in that time. In one moment, they can change the game."
‘Los Niños’ and the cost of youth
After San Diego's unprecedented inaugural season, it is easy to forget how young this roster still is.
Yes, there are experienced internationals scattered throughout the group. But SDFC's average age is 25, and its back line has been historically young at times.
Last season against Atlanta United, San Diego produced the youngest back line in MLS history: Luca Bombino, 19; Manu Duah, 20; Ian Pilcher, 22; and Oscar Verhoeven, 19. Average age: 20.
The club's young core - they call them "Los Niños" - has become one of the more intriguing parts of SDFC’s early run.
Goalkeeper Duran Ferree, still only 19, had a remarkable early start to the season. Osvald Søe, 20, Wilson Eisner, 24, and Kieran Sargeant, 22, have all contributed to a developmental foundation that gives Varas’ club energy, athleticism, upside, and, at times, understandable volatility.
That is the tradeoff.
Young players can make a club fearless. They can also make the margins feel terrifyingly thin.
"You learn how to play the game, right?" Varas said. "Every single facet of that game, and part of it is learning how to be able to maintain that energy, and that consistency for 90-plus minutes."
Varas also pointed to another layer of the problem: late-game substitutions.
It is one thing to grow into a match. It is another when young players or players still finding rhythm are asked to enter a match already burning hot.
"How do you come off the bench in a high-tense moment?" Varas said. "How much experience have you had with that?
"Again, though, that can't be an excuse in the short term. It's something that's definitely worthwhile to reflect on and to help orientate the team, but also individual players, towards improvement. At the same time demanding of ourselves that we close games stronger."
A pattern that keeps repeating
Lately, SDFC has lived on the wrong side of those margins.
There are plenty of reasons why: a shortened preseason, heavier expectations, a demanding schedule, injuries and a rash of red cards. But the simplest explanation may also be the easiest to overlook.
San Diego is still young, especially in the back, and is learning hard MLS lessons in real time.
Last Saturday marked the fourth time this season the club lost a win or a tie after the 80th minute. That happened only twice in 2025.
On March 14, visiting SDFC led FC Dallas 3-1 before Petar Musa dragged the home side back. His penalty shot in the 54th minute made it 3-2. His stoppage-time equalizer in the 95th minute made it 3-3.
Eight days later, at Snapdragon Stadium, Real Salt Lake did something similar. SDFC led 2-1 until Victor Olatunji found the equalizer in the 85th minute.
On April 25, Portland’s Alex Bonetig scored in the 96th minute, turning a point into nothing.
Then came LAFC.
A 2-0 lead. A rivalry game. A chance to close the door. Instead, San Diego watched it swing open again.
That’s seven points in four matches. The difference between 12th place and sixth in the Western Conference.
That doesn’t mean San Diego's young defenders are the problem. It means they are part of a team learning one of the sport's least forgiving truths: closing games is a separate skill from playing them well.
Late-game management requires more than legs and talent. It requires spacing, communication, foul selection, set-piece discipline, emotional control and the ability to recognize when a match no longer requires beauty.
Sometimes it needs clearance. Sometimes it needs delay. Sometimes it needs one less touch.
Godoy, one of the club's most experienced players, sees the promise. He also sees the lesson.
"I think we have really good young guys, like mentally, I think they understand the game really well, but they have to understand the moment," Godoy said. "Right now, everything is about one game. It's about: win one game and everything changes."
The next test: Seattle
That one game will be at Lumen Field.
Seattle enters Saturday's match as one of the most balanced teams in MLS. The Sounders are unbeaten in seven straight league matches and riding a club-record 20-match home unbeaten streak. They have allowed only five goals, the fewest in the league.
Seattle will test SDFC differently than LAFC did. LAFC can tilt a match with individual brilliance. The Sounders can grind one down with structure, experience and pressure.
For San Diego's young back line, it is another exam in maturity.
The encouraging part? These lessons do not have to become permanent scars.
For a club built around development, these are the uncomfortable reps that can eventually become muscle memory.
The blown leads sting now, but if SDFC's kids are as good as the club believes, these final-minute failures may become part of the education that makes them better.
San Diego FC (3-5-3) at Seattle Sounders (6-1-2)
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Streaming: AppleTV
Radio: 760-AM
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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 5:58 PM.