They’re No. 1: SDFC earns top seed in Western Conference playoffs with win, help

Anders Dreyer scored the first goal in San Diego FC history. Amahl Pellegrino joined the club in a late-August trade.

Saturday night, SDFC’s first star and its newest one teamed up for one of the biggest wins in the franchise’s young history.

Pellegrino scored in the 26th and 63rd minutes and Dreyer punched in goals in the 47th and 49th minutes, and San Diego FC wrapped its regular season with a 4-0 win over the Portland Timbers at Providence Park.

The victory, coupled with FC Dallas’ 2-1 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps, earned SDFC (19-9-6) the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference playoffs.

SDFC will host the winner of Wednesday’s 8/9 play-in match between Portland and Real Salt Lake in a best-of-three series. Times and television assignments will be announced on Sunday.

“I hope all of San Diego feels it, because it’s these moments are never guaranteed to you in life, and they’re not easy to come by,” SDFC coach Mikey Varas said. “And I think we said we wanted to be a reflection of the community, and we really meant it, and that’s about putting in hard work and being creative and taking risks and making a lot of sacrifices, and really proud of these guys, really proud of the staff, everybody who’s involved, really proud of the fans. …

“And now we ask ourselves, what now? Because we’re hungry for more.”

San Diego will host Games 1 and 3 in the first round, which is big. Since the MLS Cup Playoffs format was changed in 2023, hosting teams have won nearly 70% of their first-round series.

The victory on MLS’ “Decision Day” was the latest landmark win for San Diego FC. Two weeks ago, the club set an expansion-club record for wins (18) and points (60) in a season. San Diego will now try to become the first expansion club to win the MLS Cup since the Chicago Fire did so in 1998.

Pellegrino, acquired from the San Jose Earthquakes for $300,000 in general allocation money, opened the scoring on Saturday with a right-footed poke, with Dreyer earning the assist. SDFC entered halftime with a one-goal lead, then got back-to-back scores from Dreyer with a left-footer from outside the box and a lefty chip over the goalkeeper’s head.

Said SDFC midfielder Jeppe Tverskov: “I think we played a very mature and almost perfect game.”

Moments after Dreyer made it 3-0, FC Dallas gave the azul and chrome an assist from thousands of miles away. FC Dallas’ single-named standout, Kaick, punched in a left-footer to give his club a 2-1 lead. Pellegrino matched Dreyer with a bounding right-footer that gave SDFC a 4-0 lead.

From there, San Diego fans just had to wait out the final minutes of Dallas’ nervy one-goal win over the Whitecaps. Dallas played the final 79 minutes with a one-man advantage after Vancouver’s Mathías Laborda received a red card in the 11th minute.