San Diego FC's inaugural season ends with 3-1 loss to Vancouver Whitecaps

The outcome of tonight's MLS Cup Playoffs game between San Diego FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC was always going to result in one team going home and one team heading to Miami to take on Lionel Messi and Inter Miami in the MLS Cup.

Unfortunately, Vancouver will be moving on ahead and San Diego FC will wake up tomorrow with ideas and plans for the offseason before starting a new MLS season in February 2026.

I don't think I need to bash San Diego FC, despite them being overwhelmed by Vancouver for most of this match. They just came up against a Vancouver team that had a great plan and executed it to perfection. Part of that plan was almost certainly to attack the young defensive line of SDFC and score early.

Brian White got things going when he beat Luca Bombino to a ball in the box in the opening minutes of the match, giving Vancouver a 1-0 lead.

Just a few minutes later, the SDFC backline scrambled to get behind Pablo Sisniega in goal and ended up sacrificing a rebound to do so. The rebound was fired in by Ali Ahmed, with Manu Duah saving it from going in goal. Unfortunately, Duah's save bounced right off of Sisniega and back into the net for an "own goal" and a 2-0 lead for Vancouver when the game had barely started.