In a likely first in the realms of both restaurants and soccer, the El Farolito taqueria amateur team has defeated an affiliate of a Major League Soccer franchise.
El Farolito’s amateur team came from behind Tuesday night to beat the Portland Timbers 2, a feeder club for Major League Soccer’s Portland Timbers, in the opening round of the U.S. Open Cup.
The 110-year-old national soccer competition — easily the nation’s oldest — is familiar with big upsets in its first rounds. But the oddity of a team named for a burrito restaurant triumphing against a reserve side of the MLS — at the Timbers’ home stadium of Providence Park, no less — found its way around the United States, as did the taquería’s well-known yellow sign at 24th and Mission streets.
“It’s been a lot of years of trying to beat a professional side and compete in the U.S. Open Cup,” said Santiago Lopez, head coach of the Farolito squad and son of the late Salvador Lopez, founder of both the team and restaurant chain. He’s also the general manager of El Farolito’s dozen taquerias up and down the Bay Area.
Although this is only El Farolito’s fifth trip to the cup — a tournament akin to the F.A. Cup in England or the Copa del Rey in Spain — connoisseurs of the game and regulars at the taqueria know the club’s history goes way back. In 1985, only two years after opening his taqueria, Salvador Lopez founded a team christened after it. Soon enough, El Farolito became regulars at the top of the San Francisco Soccer League.
In the early ’90s, the club briefly adopted the name C.D. Mexico and the Mexican flag’s colors. In 1993, they qualified for their first U.S. Open Cup and won the final 5-0 against the United German-Hungarians of Pennsylvania. It was a pre-Major League Soccer time, with teams named after the country of import (the Brooklyn Italians, Greek-American A.C., the Milwaukee Bavarians) and local leagues dominated by expat pros and amateur aces.
The Latino side prevailed, that time. The evidence rests in the dark interior of El Farolito at Mission and 24th, on the shelves above the liquor bottles and TVs, almost lost amidst a collection of trophies: The rusty alloy ball on top of a wooden pedestal. On its plate: “U.S. National Open Cup – 1993 Champion.”
Papi fútbol
Contrary to popular belief, the El Farolito squad’s ties to its namesake taqueria run on the management side, not the workers’. The blue and gold team has rarely fielded any restaurant workers — never under Santiago Lopez’s 14-year tenure — and instead recruits through private tryouts and informal scouting of pick-up games. Once known as a “papi squad” (a “daddy team”) because of the maturity of its players, the median age of the team has gone down, and the team has re-emerged in recent years. They joined the National Premier Soccer League in 2017, and soon returned to the U.S. Open Cup.
This season’s roster includes construction workers, ride-hail drivers, soccer coaches and other day laborers, ages 18 to 36, although the average player is in his late 20s.
Following a decades-long trend, current members hail mostly from Latin America (Colombia, Mexico and Central American countries are strongly represented), but this season’s roster also includes four players from Ivory Coast (around half a dozen of the 30 players on the roster are U.S.-born). Some played professionally, some stopped a long time ago; all of them remained in love with the game. Given the limited time he gets with the squad, that is the one trait coach Lopez is banking on for this 2024 run.
“We can only train twice a week, 8 to 9:30 p.m., in different fields all over the city, because that is when everyone is done with work,” he said. Some of his players work 7-5 jobs, go to practice, commute back to multiple places over the Bay Area, and still do the homework of staying in shape. It’s a sacrifice he regards with deep admiration.
“Sometimes, practice doesn’t go as planned, because we have to share the field, and we work on something else, and everyone in the group is very respectful of the circumstances. We work smart,” he added.
Commitment and hardships in the lead-up were evident in the game against the Timbers 2, a U-23 team of fresh-legged, full-time players aspiring to play in Major League Soccer. Quick and clean, El Farolito saved energy by letting the ball run. Wise old foxes, they pressured high without overexerting themselves against the MLS Next side. They still went down 0-1 before halftime, after a blown challenge by goalkeeper Johan Lizarralde gifted the ball to the young Timbers. Fortunately for the visitors, Portland showed its greenness and lack of tactical acumen in consecutive set pieces, which turned into perfect headers into the back of the net by Colombian Jhoann Yabur and Honduran Dembor Benson.
The comeback was complete but, just for good measure, El Farolito’s bench started throwing extra balls into the playing field in the final minutes of the game. Wasting time never hurt the winner.
El Farolito should find out who its second-round rivals will be later this week; that game will be played the first week of April. Whether the game is held here in San Francisco or elsewhere will be determined on Friday. For now, it’s back to Boxer Stadium in Balboa Park for the team’s National Premier Soccer League regular season opener against the Sacramento Gold, Saturday at 4 p.m.
“Some have called us the Burritos Team, and some may find it offensive, but for us, it is amazing to be connected to a burrito spot,” said Lopez proudly on the phone from the Portland International Airport. “For the people to discover they have a team with a name that in the Mission is known through food, low prices, fair portions and opening late for people.”
Sadly for loyal patrons and hipsters alike, their jerseys cannot be found in any of the taqueria’s 12 spots. “They’re too difficult to manufacture,” Lopez explained.
Fortunately, they share a blue-and-gold color scheme with another local team trying to punch above its weight this season. Yay for double-purpose merch.
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