SAN ANTONIO (Fwrd Axis) — San Antonio FC earned a point thanks to a last-second goal from Ignacio Bailone as they fought to a 3-3 draw with the Tampa Bay Rowdies at Toyota Field on Saturday night.
The Story: San Antonio raced out to a 2-0 lead but errors saw that lead evaporate as the Rowdies took a 3-2 lead before Bailone’s goal in stoppage time.
- Santiago Patiño opened the scoring in the 23rd minute, scoring in his second consecutive match and the fourth time since rejoining the club.
- Nathan Fogaça made it a 2-0 lead for SAFC in the second half, scoring his first goal since rejoining the club.
- Tampa Bay scored three consecutive goals as JJ Williams put home a header, Charlie Dennis scored on a penalty, and Josh Perez’s shot from outside the box took a deflection and went into the net.
“We should’ve put them away,” SAFC Head Coach Alen Marcina said. “The amount of opportunities, clear-cut opportunities, we created – I get it, we scored three goals, but we should’ve put them away. We should’ve never allowed them to have the opportunity to get back into it.”
Cause for concern?: With the result, San Antonio is now winless in six consecutive matches, their longest stretch without a victory since 2021.
- San Antonio is 0-1-5 in their last six matches.
- Marcina mentioned “individual errors” as the reason SAFC gave up the lead, saying, “Two individual errors hurt us, so disappointed in that”.
- With San Antonio creating chances but not converting, teams have taken advantage of that over the past six matches.
“We scored three goals tonight, probably could have scored another three goals tonight,” Marcina said. “We’re leading the league in shots taken, xG, and goals scored. I’m not sure if there should be a level of concern on my end.”
Time to fix it: With the playoffs around the corner, San Antonio still having individual errors this late in the season means they are running out of time to correct them.
“As we move into playoffs, those moments are what are gonna win us or lose us games,” Defender Connor Maloney said. “So we’ve got to clean those up, the rest of these games in the regular season, and then we go into the playoffs hopefully not making those mistakes. And I think the guys in the locker room are confident that we can do that.”
Up next: San Antonio FC is now 13-5-12 (51 points) on the season and will return to the pitch next Saturday when they host Orange County SC at 7:30 p.m. to conclude their home stand.
