A match decades in the making finally happens Saturday night when San Diego FC debuts on its home field in front of a sellout crowd of fans starved for elite professional sports — and particularly hungry for top-level soccer.
San Diego's first Major League Soccer club began competition as the league's 30th franchise last week, and made an immediate splash by beating the defending MLS Cup champion LA Galaxy on their home field.
A week later, San Diego formally christens Snapdragon Stadium, the new arena built on the Mission Valley ground once occupied by the oft-renamed home of MLB's Padres and the NFL's Chargers.
The night is a dream come true for generations of San Diego soccer fans, who have watched while products of their extensive youth systems advanced to all levels of the international game. San Diego's year-round sunshine and location on the border with Mexico make it a soccer haven, but after years of failed attempts to get a serious team in a top North American league, those fans finally have a well-organized, well-funded team to call their own.
Danish winger Anders Dreyer, who scored both goals in San Diego's 2-0 victory over the Galaxy last week, already has a feeling for his new town's passion for the sport. He hopes San Diego FC will send a message immediately.
"Hopefully it's going to be a magical night, and we want to make it that for the fans and for the city," Dreyer said. “You can really feel the energy from the fans and the passion about now having a football team in San Diego. We need that 12th man at home.”
San Diego's home debut against St. Louis SC will be in front of a boisterous crowd in a soccer-crazed city eager for another pro sports franchise to cheer in what has become a bit of a sports desert.
San Diego FC arrives to fill a significant vacuum. When the NFL's Chargers moved 90 miles north to Los Angeles in 2017, only the Padres were left among the continent's most popular pro sports for the San Diego area's 3.2 million people, although the NWSL's San Diego Wave also began play in 2022.
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Every other U.S. metropolitan area with more than 2.7 million people had at least two teams in North America's major pro sports — except the Lakers-and-Dodgers-loving Riverside/San Bernardino area, which is considered a separate metro area from Los Angeles by demographers.
The well-to-do San Diego market was ripe for new sports, but its lack of a world-class indoor arena has quashed any ambitions for an NBA or NHL franchise. San Diego also didn't have a top-quality outdoor arena besides the Padres' Petco Park, which is why the Chargers left town.
But the city's sports rebirth started when it tore down the former Jack Murphy Stadium in early 2021 and sold the land to San Diego State University, which built and opened Snapdragon Stadium in 2022.
San Diego FC was already more than a dream at that point, but it got serious just a few weeks after Snapdragon opened. That's when Egyptian-born British billionaire Mohamed Mansour joined the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation in a bid for an MLS franchise.
The group paid a $500 million expansion fee to secure the league's 30th team in May 2023. Less than two years later, a team led by Mexican star Hirving “Chucky” Lozano and Dreyer is on the field and generating excitement.