San Diego FC cruises to 2-0 victory against St. Louis City

Anders Dreyer celebrates his first goal of 2026 in San Diego FC’s 2-0 victory against St. Louis City SC. (Emmanuel Alonso/Sandiego.futbol)

San Diego FC continued their winning ways on Sunday, March 1, in a 2-0 victory against St. Louis City SC.

“I would say that it's a good start to the season,” said head coach Mikey Varas. “That's a good St. Louis team, and really well coached. You can see how different they are from last year and my prediction is, that they will be a very good team in the league.”

San Diego only featured one change in the starting XI compared to last week with Kieran Sargeant playing in the left back position.

Somewhat surprisingly, Duran Ferree started for a second week in a row ahead of Pablo Sisniega and CJ Dos Santos. Sisniega was out last week serving a red card suspension, and Dos Santos is still returning from an injury to his face that forced him to get surgery.

Ferree did not face many tough shots in the match, but did maintain his composure for the second straight week on the backline.

San Diego’s 2025 MVP runner-up got on the scoresheet for the first time in 2026 only a couple minutes into the match.

San Diego began the match with its relentless high press coupled with speedy passes, and St. Louis wasn’t ready. At the third minute five San Diego players had the numbers advantage against four St. Louis players on the back foot. Onni Valakari moved the ball up from the midfield quickly before sending a pass to Marcus Ingvartsen who was just onside.

Ingvartsen took one touch and drew defenders toward him, giving space to Anders Dreyer to come in wide open on the wing. Dreyer received a well-placed pass by Ingvartsen and sent it into the back of the net with a strong left-footed strike to make it 1-0.

San Diego made it 2-0 by the 54th minute with another great moment for Anders Dreyer and Marcus Ingvartsen. The Chrome and Azul brought the ball up down the right side of the pitch with Anders Dreyer drawing lots of defensive attention as he neared the penalty area. Dreyer wiggled past a few defenders and appeared to set himself up for a shot, but passed the ball to Ingvartsen who scored it easily to make it 2-0.

The victory kept San Diego atop the western conference only two matches into the MLS season with six points and tied with three other teams, but San Diego hold the best goal differential of the four clubs.

The Chrome and Azul play their next match on the road on Saturday, March 7, against Sporting KC, then return home for a midweek match against the reigning Liga MX champions, Toluca in the Concacaf Champions Cup.