Tom Krasovic: First-place San Diego FC so far succeeding where so many local teams failed

San Diego FC’s entertaining 2-1 victory Sunday night in Los Angeles reaffirmed an interesting trait about the first-year franchise.

These players live up to their favored status at a good rate even when challenges mount.

That’s atypical of San Diego professional sports teams of prominence.

Historically, San Diego clubs tend to be at their best as underdogs. As nominal favorites in the bigger games, conversely, they often seem insecure.

SDFC entered Sunday atop Major League Soccer’s 15-team Western Conference. The league hyped up the match, the only one played that day. The action started at 7:45 p.m. — prime time.

Then coach Mikey Varas’ club performed like a first-place club. After an early goal by L.A. ignited a vocal crowd and led the goal-scorer to do a somersault and dance with teammates, San Diego FC regrouped, scored once in each half and held on for the win.

San Diego’s victory over LAFC, which had been on the rise and stands among the league’s top franchises all-time, completed the first four-game sweep of the two L.A. clubs since Sporting Kansas City did it four years ago.

Did it take MLS expanding to Mission Valley to weaken the juju attached to San Diego’s professional sports scene?

Check back in the postseason. This team has flaws.

But there’s a difference with this club. Most of SDFC’s top players, differing from Chargers and Padres stars of San Diego lore, came to San Diego after playing against better competition than the top American league serves up. Those players have looked fit and capable, unlike a number of MLS transplants from Europe over the years whose bodies wore out.

With high-energy Danish stars Anders Dreyer, 27, and Jeppe Tverskov, 32, on the pitch, San Diego was able to overcome L.A. again.

Dreyer scored one high-caliber goal on Sunday and assisted on another, further bolstering his case for league MVP honors.

Enjoy Dreyer while you can. He may be playing himself into a sweet European gig.

International star Hirving “Chucky” Lozano hails from soccer-mad Mexico City and scored a decisive goal against Germany in a World Cup, making MLS tame stuff for him. The 30-year-old wing, still quick and fit despite two hamstring injuries, finished with precision to tie LAFC in the 33rd minute.

Finnish forward Onni Valakari, 26, also looks sharp. He completed all 20 of his passes, one of which Dreyer and Lozano turned into Dreyer’s MLS-best 18th assist.

Behind the front line, several other veterans behaved like a first-place team should.

Tverskov had a high-skill assist, setting up Dreyer’s 14th goal. Goalkeeper CJ dos Santos, a Philadelphia native who trained in Portugal as a young adult, had his best game of the season. Panama resilient Anibal Godoy, 35, recorded 101 touches, trailing only Tverskov for game honors.

Jittery moments from SDFC endangered their 2-1 lead late, and similar loose play could boot this club from its first playoff series. That would trash this fragile narrative of San Diego exceptionalism.

MLS’ regular season isn’t a great litmus test of championship stuff because, absurdly, 18 of 30 clubs will go to the postseason. But the San Diego newbies have won seven consecutive road games, tying a league record. SDFC is 17-7-5 in its first season. Twenty-nine games isn’t nothing, and with five games left, SDFC has locked up a playoff spot. Up next: home-field advantage for its first postseason series.

Keep this in mind as the long season crawls toward SDFC’s playoff opener in late October:

On quiet nights in Mission Valley, you can still hear the groans of San Diegans who paid good money only to see favored Chargers football teams fizzle in the playoffs.

In 10 home playoff games as betting-line favorites, the NFL’s Chargers went 4-6. The stretch began with Dan Fouts throwing five interceptions as an eight-point favorite against the Oilers and struggling in a Super Bowl qualifier the next winter against the Raiders. The last of those San Diego bummers came 15 years ago, when Norv Turner’s club, favored by 9 1/2 points, Chargered itself against the Jets.

Come the MLS playoffs, San Diego’s soccer newbies can lean into the underdog’s role as an expansion club. But as a team that’s now first or tied for first in goals scored and assists, and eighth in goals allowed, it won’t be surprising if they’re seeded first of the nine Western Conference teams.

Opponents won’t regard SDFC as upstarts, nor will MLS analysts. And I doubt Dreyer and his new friends will, either.