Local soccer club San Diego FC's supporters were treated to an exclusive bobblehead feature during their match against FC Cincinnati, with fans getting a likeness of incoming Danish winger Anders Dreyer. On the pitch, the team led, tied, and then tied again, with exciting moments, including Marcus Ingvartsen's goal. After the 90-minute match, the team thought they had the ball in the net for a 3-2 win. However, FC Cincinnati pounced on the celebration with an equalizer, leading to a dramatic 3-3 tie. The ever-insightful soccer question of a tie being a point won or two lost divides opinions. In any case, the team remained in 10th place and will need to win on Saturday against the Vancouver Whitecaps in their next game to secure this season's progress.
San Diego FC’s Marcus Ingvartsen gestures after scoring against FC Cincinnati during the first half at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego on Saturday, May 16, 2026.
It was Anders Dreyer bobblehead night at Snapdragon Stadium, where fans received a likeness of the Danish winger as an “El Paletero,” a Mexican ice cream vendor on a bike. Dreyer actually posed as one for the photoshoot to create the bobblehead, handing out ice cream to kids while riding around with the cooler on the front of a bike.
San Diego FC was in an equally giving mood, scoring the go-ahead goal deep into second-half injury time and then surrendering the equalizer moments later for a wild 3-3 tie against FC Cincinnati that has come to define this upside-down season. SDFC had gone down 2-1 after a pair of blunders by teenage starters, then equalized on a sensational assist from 19-year-old Pedro Soma to Amahl Pellegrino and seemed to have grabbed a dramatic game-winner on Marcus Ingvartsen’s goal in the 96th minute.
While the smoke from celebratory fireworks was still clearing, the visitors kicked off and sent a desperate ball into the box that 6-foot-4 Ayoub Jabari headed to an unmarked Tom Barlow for his second easy tap-in goal of the night. The ages-old question in soccer is whether a tie is a point won, or two points lost. FC Cincinnati will feel like the former, no doubt, and SDFC like the latter.
That makes it only one win in SDFC’s last 12 games – Wednesday’s 5-0 thumping of Austin FC – and kept them in 10th place in the Western Conference with only one game left before Major League Soccer takes a seven-week World Cup break. That game is also at home, Saturday against the Vancouver Whitecaps in the long-anticipated rematch of last season’s Western Conference final at Snapdragon Stadium won 3-1 by the visitors. FC Cincinnati feels SDFC’s pain.
The club finished second in the East last season, a mere point off the league’s best record, and has dropped to ninth this year.
“They’ve been in a tough moment, same as us, with injuries and some red cards, but they have top players,” SDFC coach Mikey Varas said on Friday. “They come very hungry to gain points and get themselves going in the right direction. So they’re in a similar boat as us.
”SDFC employed its usual high press with an implausibly high defensive line, which basically banks on MLS teams not being skilled enough to play over, through or around it, eventually coughing up the ball in dangerous positions. That’s the reward. The risk, of course, is if the opponent does play through the press or creates a turnover of its own, there’s little in the way of reinforcements behind with so many bodies pushed forward.
And that’s exactly what happened in the 11th minute, when Brazilian playmaker Evander – a teammate of Dreyer’s at Danish club FC Midtjylland in 2020-21 – got the ball in the center circle and fed French winger Kenji Mboma Dem in the space vacated by 19-year-old SDFC right back Luca Bombino. It probably should have been 2-0 on another FC Cincinnati counterattack but Evander had his open shot saved by Ferree.
At the other end, SDFC had several chances after the visitors coughed up the ball against the press, finally connecting in the 32nd minute when left back Kieran Sargeant found Ingvartsen for the equalizer. FC Cincinnati went ahead again five minutes into the second half when the 19-year-old Ferree looked like a veteran All-Star and a green rookie literally seconds apart.
Ferree spectacularly tipped Evander’s curling, dipping free kick over the bar, then whiffed on Evander’s ensuing corner kick into the goalmouth and Barlow tapped it in for a marshmallow-soft goal. If teenagers made mistakes that led to FC Cincinnati’s two first goals, another got SDFC level at 2-2 in the 65th minute.
A halftime sub for veteran Anibal Godoy, 19-year-old Pedro Soma threaded a perfectly weighted pass through two defenders to a sprinting Amahl Pellegrino, who finished it and re-energized the crowd. That gave the hosts a half-hour to run its winning streak to two games. And they thought they had when another teen – 17-year-old substitute Anisse Saidi – found Ingvarsten alone inside the box for a 3-2 lead that lasted less than 60 seconds.
Soccer San Diego FC Booby Prize Bobblehead Celebrate Tie Ayoub Jabari Unmarked Tom Barlow Marcus Ingvartsen Anders Dreyer El Paletero Foil By Soccer Question Tie Match Exists
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