TIgres takedown San Diego FC in second Leagues Cup match

San Diego FC striker, Tomás Ángel celebrates his equalizing in SDFC’s 2-1 defeat against Tigres UANL. (Photo courtesy: San Diego FC)

San Diego FC lost its second match in the Leagues Cup, this time against Tigres UANL in a 2-1 result in front of an announced crowd of 25,915.

“I’m proud of the boys. We competed really well against a top Liga MX team,” SDFC Head Coach Mikey Varas said. “I think if we're a little cleaner in the final third, taking the chances that we, you know, almost create from really, really good breakthrough sequences and we clean up a couple of mistakes, pretty big mistakes, that, then I don't think they created too much.”

San Diego won the possession battle 55% to 45% in the first half, but couldn’t create a truly promising chance in the final third. 

Their Liga MX opponent, Tigres, got on the board first with a goal by their star winger, Angel Correa, in the 31st minute. 

Tigres sent a long ball down the left wing to an open Tigres player. He had a lot of time inside the

Duah is trying to defend the left wing, but pass goes into the middle to a player who shot it immediately.

Sisniega batted away the shot with his hands, but the deflection landed right in front of the Tigres’ star forward Angel Correa. Correa took a shot that hit Sisniega in the chest right back to Correa to his left allowing him to tap the ball in and take the 1-0 lead. 

The rest of the first half San Diego managed to take a couple more shots, but none were threatening leaving the score at 1-0 to end the first half. 

The second half started better for San Diego as they created some better chances in the attacking third and equalize in the 55th minute. 

Tomas Angel equalizes after some poor ability to clear the ball. The ball bounced around inside the opposition’s box and a defender tried to head the ball down to a teammate, but the ball was intercepted by an SDFC player and landed at the feet of Angel. He rifled his shot into the back of the net to equalize at 1-1. 

Following his goal he wiped his body with his hands as if to get rid of something stuck to him.

San Diego did well to keep their attack on, but a defensive mistake by Manu Duah led to a game-winning goal for Tigres. 

Duah came off his defensive line to chest a ball down and bring the ball up the pitch, but he didn’t control the ball and it went to Juan Brunetta. 

Brunetta sent the ball up to Correa who was pressing high. Correa got past a defender to score, earning his brace, and easily make it 2-1. 

Duah, 20 years old, played as a midfielder throughout his life, but SDFC started training him at center back in the middle of the season. 

"I actually thought (Duah) put a pretty decent game together. He's now playing a lot of minutes in a short period of time,” Varas said. “His games before this were at college level. People forget that, and he didn't have a preseason with us, we trained him at midfield, and we throw him into the deep water as a center back...

“Yeah, of course he has a mistake, and he has to learn from that. If he learns from this mistake and recognizes how to balance a little bit the risk better, he's going to be just fine.”

Both teams tried to add to the scoresheet, but neither would for the rest of the match. 

Just before the end of stoppage time SDFC Captain, Jeppe Tverskov, sat down on the pitch due to a non-contact injury and took himself out of precaution forcing San Diego to play with 10 men because they had used all their substitutions. 

“(Tverskov) didn't feel anything, but he knows his body quite well, so the feeling that he had. He knows that if he kept going, that it could turn into something,” Varas said. “He was out of precaution, and we were not going to risk of players health.“

San Diego are not yet technically eliminated from the next phase of the Leagues Cup, but 14 MLS teams would need to lose their next two matches along with a win by San Diego to make it to the next phase of the competition.

SDFC play will play their third Leagues Cup match at home on Tuesday, August 5, at 7 p.m. against Mazatlán FC.