SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio FC stayed hot both in the Texas heat and on the pitch as they rallied for a 2-1 victory over Rio Grande Valley FC at Toyota Field on Wednesday night.
The story: San Antonio rallied for the victory despite giving up the first goal of the match just 10 minutes in. The win is the fourth straight for SAFC, who moved into first place in the Western Conference and in the lead for Copa Tejas.
- Santiago Patiño scored the equalizer just three minutes later while Rida Zouhir gave SAFC the lead with his seventh goal of the season.
- San Antonio has now won seven of the last eight matches.
“It’s our second game of three games in eight days, so far collecting six points is huge,” SAFC Head Coach Alen Marcina said. “Proud of the guys’ resilience, our intensity from start to finish we sustained, which is not an easy thing to do.”
Hitting their stride: Since SAFC’s 0-1 loss to Miami, the club has turned things around on both sides of the ball, averaging 2.75 goals per game while allowing only an average of one goal per game.
- “Guys understood, we didn’t perform at our best. And from that day on the intensity has been from start to finish, and the mindset – maybe a little bit of a shift from last year where it was you know ‘we don’t concede,’ this year it’s ‘we score one more than the opponent,’ right the objective of the game,” Marcina said.
Staying at the top: San Antonio moved into first place in the Western Conference with the win and one point behind the Pittsburgh Riverhounds for first place in the USL Championship.
- “I think San Antonio FC has shown the last couple years how competitive they are, how competitive we are at home, we know being in first place is a big advantage when it comes to playoff time,” Patino said. “One of the reasons why we won it last year, we knew playing at home, it was going to make it easier for us, and playing with our crowd is going to make a difference.”
Up Next: San Antonio FC will face off against Monterey Bay F.C. at 8 p.m. Saturday night at Toyota Field.
