‘Now we start a new season’: San Diego FC faces fresh challenges after record-setting first year

Anders Dreyer’s flowing locks are gone, replaced by a tight buzzcut.

“Tired of the long hair,” San Diego FC’s Danish winger said.

The question, of course, is whether his team’s performance gets a trim, too.

SDFC begins year two in Major League Soccer on Saturday night at Snapdragon Stadium against CF Montreal, with the inconvenient reality that the only way they can improve on their inaugural season is to reach the MLS Cup final.

The blessing: The roster that finished atop the Western Conference is largely intact and has a year of familiarity with the soccer-meets-riverboat-gambling style that flummoxed one opponent after another.

The curse: The safety net of low (or really, no) expectations has vanished, from an expansion team picked near the bottom of MLS to one projected to contend for silverware.

“Hopefully, we as a group, the players and the staff, can continue what we did last year,” said Dreyer, the MLS Newcomer of the Year in 2025 with 19 goals and 19 assists. “It’s going to be tough. The second year for a team is always tough.

“You see that a lot when a club is promoted in Europe, and the next year isn’t as good. It’s what maybe we can face this season. Teams are maybe preparing a little bit more for what’s ahead when they play against us. … Last year we were riding a little bit of a wave that everything was going great.

“Now we start a new season.”

Or as coach Mikey Varas put it: “We won’t take anybody by surprise, right?”

San Diego FC’s Manu Duah shows off all angles of the team’s new Unprecedented Unity kit. (San Diego FC)

A year ago, SDFC shocked the defending champion Los Angeles Galaxy 2-0 in their inaugural match at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, then spent the next eight months emphatically proving it wasn’t a fluke. The chrome and azul set MLS records for wins (19) and points (63) by an expansion franchise, ultimately succumbing 3-1 to the Vancouver Whitecaps and German star Thomas Müllerin the Western Conference final.

The greatest expansion team in MLS history is generally considered the 1998 Chicago Fire that won the MLS Cup. But the league had 12 teams back then, not 30. And the salary cap rules weren’t as convoluted or restrictive, and the domestic talent pool was not nearly as diluted.

“When you do something special or almost special, it can be a natural reaction for people to relax and (say), ‘That was hard,’” Varas said. “That’s just something we won’t accept. Here at this club, we want to have this relentless pursuit of winning, relentless pursuit of who we want to be from a culture and style of play perspective.

“Right now, it’s been a lot of emphasis that not only do we need to take the same steps we took last year in preparation but we need to take those steps even better.”

The first was maintaining continuity with the roster, and sporting director Tyler Heaps did that by exercising purchase options on four youngsters and re-signing or extending several veterans, along with Varas.

Hirving Lozano #11 of San Diego FC reacts during the match against the Vancouver Whitecaps at the Snapdragon Stadium on Saturday, July 19, 2025 in San Diego, CA. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The most notable departure is Mexican star Hirving “Chucky” Lozano, although he technically isn’t gone. The club announced last month that the 30-year-old left wing who made $7.6 million last season is no longer in their sporting plans and they’d work to transfer him, only for Lozano to express a desire to stay and, sources have told the Union-Tribune, block any proposed moves to other clubs.

The stalemate has reached six weeks, with Lozano showing up for practice every day and training by himself on the side.

The other notable departure is central midfielder Luca de la Torre, who started 24 games but had a reduced role off the bench during the playoffs. Pedro Soma, a 19-year-old U.S. youth national team player who joined SDFC last summer from FC Barcelona’s reserves, has been starting in that spot.

Inter Miami midfielder Lewis Morgan (7) and LA Galaxy defender Jorge Villafana (19) collide during the first half of an MLS soccer match, Sunday, April 18, 2021, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

The most notable incoming transfer is Lewis Morgan, a 29-year-old Scottish forward who has been effective in MLS … when he’s healthy.

Varas said Morgan is making progress from his latest injury bout and could be available in the next few weeks as an option up top or wide left.

A lower-profile acquisition was the kind that has come to define SDFC: claiming 23-year-old defender Wilson Eisner off MLS waivers.

Eisner had exactly zero minutes of MLS experience, playing exclusively on the San Jose Earthquakes’ reserve team, but Heaps liked his analytics and versatile skill set. Eisner started both games against Mexico City club Pumas in the Concacaf Champions Cup and acquitted himself well in the 4-2 aggregate victory that sent SDFC to the round of 16 of the regional club championship.

With the global winter transfer window closed, any high-profile additions — including a designated player to bolster the attack — likely won’t come until summer.

The biggest challenge for SDFC, though, might be less who plays and more how opposing teams play against them.

The league has a year’s worth of film on the aggressive style developed by the Right to Dream Academy that invites the high press, patiently tries to break it, then furiously attacks the open spaces at the back end.

It’s a risky exercise, particularly with the youngest back line in MLS history — three rookies started in the playoffs — charged with not coughing up the ball in and around the penalty box. SDFC set MLS records last season for the lowest percentage of balls launched forward by its goalkeepers and most passes in the offensive buildup.

Most teams couldn’t figure it out. Vancouver finally did, exposing SDFC for three early goals in the conference final at Snapdragon Stadium.

“We’re going to face a lot of different ways teams are going to play against us,” captain Jeppe Tverskov said, “and that’s what you have to do as a club. You have to evolve also to what people evolve to what you have done.”

Head coach Mikey Varas of San Diego FC acknowledges fans after losing to the Vancouver Whitecaps during the MLS Cup Western Conference Final at Snapdragon Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

To that end, Varas has spent the preseason worrying less about installing his system and more about prepping for the tactical tweaks they might see.

“I think teams are going to be more willing to play us in extremes, either really, really all-out pressing and see if they can gamble, or in a low block and try to catch us on the counterattack,” Varas said. “We’re going to need to take the next steps in that because now everybody will have a full year of film on what we do.

“These are very smart coaches and very smart players, and the league will adapt.”

The schedule is kind at the start. The first three opponents — Montreal, St. Louis City and Sporting Kansas City — are all projected to finish at or near the bottom of their conferences. SDFC doesn’t face a team that finished in the top five of the conference until April 11, when it hosts Minnesota United in its seventh game.

But there are more midweek games now that they’ve advanced in the Champions Cup and to account for a midseason World Cup break, taxing and testing the depth of a franchise that is still four or five years from being able to pluck prospects from its youth academy.

“It was a special year, but we can’t allow ourselves to drop right now,” Tverskov said. “We need to hold ourselves now to a standard which seemed a little easier last year because we had so many exciting first things. Now we need to work harder.”

SDFC’s offseason moves

Loan purchase

D Luca Bombino (LAFC, MLS)

D Oscar Verhoeven (San Jose, MLS)

M Onni Valakari (Pafos FC, Cyprus)

M David Vazquez (Philadelphia, MLS)

Incoming

M Bryce Duke (MLS free agency)

D Wilson Eisner (MLS waivers)

M Lewis Morgan (Red Bull New York, MLS)

D Kieran Sargeant (Houston, MLS)

D Osvald Søe (Boldklubben, Denmark)

F Bryan Zimble (Right to Dream Ghana)

Outgoing

M Heine Gikling Bruseth (Kristiansund, Norway)

M Luca de la Torre (Charlotte, MLS)

D Paddy McNair (Hull City, England)

D Franco Negri (Houston, MLS)

(Note: Hirving “Chucky” Lozano technically remains on the roster, but the club has said he is no longer part of their plans.)

MLS opener: San Diego FC vs. CF Montreal

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Streaming: AppleTV

Radio: 760-AM, 1700-AM (Spanish)