Both clubs had earned easy victories in the first round of the playoffs. Sun City beat the #2 seeded Oakland Stompers by a score of 5-0. They jumped out to a 3-0 first half lead with goals by Marco Legarda (15th minute), Angel Ugwumba Vizcarra (41st minute), and David Vejsmose (44th minute).
El Farolito defeated the fourth seed, Cruizers FC, by a score of 4-0. Edgar Kreye scored a pair of goals in the first half and Herlbert Soto added another just before half time.
First Half: El Farolito Comes Out Firing
The host side had the first chance of the match in the 9th minute, with Gabriel Arias trying a bicycle kick off of a cross inside the penalty box. But his shot went wide.
El Farolito scored the only goal in the first half on a brilliant individual effort by Edgard Kreye in the 28th minute. Kreye dribbled the ball to the edge of the penalty area and calmly a perfectly placed shot that landed just inside the far corner of the net.
The turning point of the match came a few minutes before the end of the first half, when Santiago Mejia received a yellow card for taking down Jesus Martinez.
In the 43rd minute, Farolito’s Mauricio García received a straight red.
Within another few minutes, both teams were pleading their case with the referee and getting into pushing and shoving matches with the other team’s players.
The officials kept showing cards. Eventually there were yellow cards for Yahir Meza in the third minute of stoppage time and David Vejsmose in the sixth. Then two more in the 7th minute, for El Farolito’s Cristhian Valencia Cifuentes and Sun City’s Tylor Guerrero Castillo.
The final one was the biggest blow for Sun City, a second yellow card for Mejia, thus turning his yellow card into red and leaving both clubs with 10 players on the field.
Searching for the Second Goal
It got worse in the second half, including a rare yellow card for Farolito’s Dembor Benson in the 60th minute and another for Head Coach Santiago Lopez.
And finally, after all that chaos, El Farolito scored a second goal in the 61st minute. Kreye was taken down in the box by Sun City goalkeeper Jeremy Rueda. This resulted in a penalty kick, expertly taken by Dembor Benson, as well as a red card that forced the visitors to play the remainder of the match with a 10-9 person disadvantage. Sun City also removed Vejsmose from the match to make way for backup goalkeeper Rommel Tarin.
There were few other quality chances in the second half.
Conversation with the Coach
After the game, Lopez was asked about the yellow card he received in the second half.
“Yeah, I ended up getting into an argument with the other coach because he was just saying that we always get help from refs and that I didn’t know anything about the game. And yeah, so I just went back and forth with him and my main message to him was that hey, it’s not the ref’s fault. It’s his fault that his team is losing. And, you know, even with a man up, they couldn’t take advantage of that.”
“They’re very aggressive going forward. They’re very good at counter-attacking, they’re super physical and they do get in in the players heads, but luckily, all year we’ve been playing with the line of four in the back, with one holding six. We’re holding a midfielder, and even with a man up, they weren’t able to, you know, execute that through the middle. It was always a long ball, so it was very predictable, so that the team never got broken down.”
Next Week’s Opponent is. . .
“We’re playing Duluth next, and that’s the same team we had a couple of years ago in the national semifinal here at Kezar. They’re a super aggressive team as well. They’re all D1 players. I remember there was a Scottish or English guy. Extremely fast, so we’re going to be looking at film there and we’ll see what happens. I know they changed coach compared to the one before. So, let’s see what happens, but I saw that they won three-zero in their conference, so I think they’re coming in strong. It’s going to be a very good game.”
A Report From the 2006 National Amateur Cup Regional Qualifying
In addition to NPSL action, Farolito is currently competing to win the 2026 National Amateur Cup. Two weeks ago they won the Region IV men’s regional qualifying matches. The tournament was played at the Western Sports Park in Farmington, Utah.
“The conditions were extremely difficult,” Lopez said. “There was a lot of wind. There was moments where it was cold, and it was raining, and it was hot. The grass fields were larger than Kezar. Are they very similar in size to Boxer? But the grass was way thicker and longer than at Boxer Stadium. So, the game flow was extremely slow and having to play Sun City on Friday was a tough match because we went 0-0. It was very competitive. A lot of the players were already fatigued and then having to come Saturday, play two games and then Sunday, playing two games again in the same conditions. It was very, very difficult, a lot of rotation.
“There was no such thing as a starting, uh, consistent starting 11, so there the subs were coming in and out at different moments. But for me, it was a great experience because I like to play tactical and play coach and changing different formations and suddenly like putting a player certain different position at certain time.
“It was extremely fun. For the players, I don’t know so much because of the fatigue. But for me, it was a great experience. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to win the National Amateur Cup.”
But there’s a conflict, with the NPSL playoffs.
“Yeah. First, we need to win next Saturday [vs. Duluth], right? And if we win, we would be in the National semi-final, and that would be on Saturday the same weekend as us going to Milwaukee to play Friday the 23rd, and if we win the semi-final, we play the final on Saturday, the 24th.
So the national semifinal at Kezar will be on the 24th here, but first we need to win this Saturday. And once that happens we’ll figure it out. We never done this before, and it’s a learning process, and hopefully we could be successful in all that.”
The Significance of Winning the Golden Gate Conference Championship
“In the preseason before meeting the players, I try to think about putting together a really deep squad and forming a team that is prepared enough for the intensity of these matches and and have subs and and get everybody involved for those type of things because at this stage, the players that we have right now are not the same as when we started. So it’s a long season, and you know, for me, it’s always learning and try to kind of create a a formula of how to create your roster. And then you know certain things that we need to be looking at the way that we scout the opponents.
“The way that we prepare the team, it’s become kind of like a repetition. But to me, it means a lot because the players work so hard, and they always want to compete. And I’ve gotta give my max and my 100% effort and concentration to them because they’re giving out their physical, and also, you know, being away from their families and all the time that we spend away from home. It’s a responsibility for me to try my best and try to help them out to to get those championships.”
