The MLS has continued to expand over the last 10 years and San Diego are the newest side to come into the fold. They are led by Mikey Varas, and he has looked to assemble a side that can compete at the very top of the MLS and the Western Conference.
Varas was appointed in September 2024, straight off the back of his time as interim manager of the United States national side. The San Diego job is the 42-year-old's first head coach role in the MLS, having previously been assistant at FC Dallas before he left for the United States U20’s in 2021.
The California outfit will play their home games at the Snapdragon Stadium, which can hold over 34,000 and is also the home of the San Diego State Aztecs and NWSL side San Diego Wave. The stadium has already played host to lots of well renowned sides such as Manchester United, Borussia Dortmund and Real Betis in preseason friendlies.
Transfer Department
Starting from complete scratch is naturally a tough task but it does allow Varas to build a side which plays to his tactics and strengths. San Diego’s assistant coach Frank Hjortebjerg has clearly played a key part in the recruitment with two players having joined from FC Nordsjaelland. Midfielder Jeppe Tverskov and forward Marcus Ingvartsen had both only spent the 23/24 and the start of the 24/25 season with the Danish side, where both players found themselves as key parts of the side.
Englishman Alex Mighten joined from Nottingham Forest in 2024, before being sent out on loan to FC Nordsjaelland. At one point you would have thought the winger was set for the big time when he played a part in Forest’s promotion to the Premier League in 21/22, but he only got one top-flight appearance and has since had loans at Sheffield Wednesday, KV Kortrijk and Port Vale. There is one other British player in the San Diego side, which is former Manchester United player Paddy McNair, who spent six years as a key part at Middlesbrough, before playing the first half of this season at West Brom after being signed by San Diego.
Hirving Lozano is another big name that will be lining up at the Snapdragon Stadium come March. The Mexican scored 23 goals in 120 appearances, in the Serie A, for Napoli between 2019 and 2023. He returned to PSV for 23/24 and then became San Diego’s first ever Designated Player in the summer of 2024.
There will also be multiple names in the San Diego side that will be a little more familiar to an American audience with MLS stalwarts Anibal Godoy, Emmanuel Boateng and Andres Reyes all signed up. As an Expansion side, the 2024 Expansion draft allowed them to pick up players that were made available by other MLS sides. They chose Heine Gikling Bruseth, Jasper Loffelsend, Hamady Diop, Thiago Andrade and Hosei Kijima, but have since traded away the latter two.
Manu Duah was selected with the first pick by San Diego in the MLS SuperDraft, after one season at UC Santa Barbara.
Preseason/Opening Fixtures
Whilst other teams see preseason as an opportunity to expand their horizons, San Diego have decided to use their preseason to build experience playing against other MLS outfits. They take on two USL Championship sides in Phoenix Rising and Sacramento Republic before fixtures in February against NY City, Portland and NY Red Bulls.
It is not an easy start to the season for the California side as they take on fellow state side LA Galaxy away from home. LA Galaxy won the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs and will be hoping to continue that level of success in 2025. Their first home game at Snapdragon Stadium is a clash against 2023’s expansion side St. Louis City on Saturday, March 1.
San Diego will just be hoping to establish themselves in the MLS this season with a squad that seems to lack some MLS experience, they will hope to make up with in foreign quality. In Varas they have a boss that’s reputation has only grown recently and will need to be backed throughout his early years in California. When St. Louis joined the league two years ago they ended up finishing fourth in the whole of the MLS, so that shows what is possible for San Diego in 2025.
