It didn’t end on the field.
After 122 minutes of soccer, two goals and a full-team melee near the opposing bench, El Farolito’s Wednesday night in Sacramento ended in the stands. It was ugly: Players were climbing up into the bleachers to defend their families as a brawl broke out among supporters following the final whistle.
Security eventually intervened. No arrests were made, though several people felt there should have been. In the end, El Farolito lost, 2-0, in extra time and crashed out of the U.S. Open Cup tournament.
“They came to mock us after the goal,” explained El Farolito coach Santiago López, describing what sparked the initial confrontation on the field.
A Sacramento player approached the Farolito bench to taunt after the late second goal, Farolito mid Jhohann Yabur followed him, and everything unraveled from there. By the time the dust settled on the field, the trouble had migrated to the seats.
None of it was supposed to end this way. For 95 minutes, El Farolito, an amateur side, had held Sacramento Republic, a full-time professional club, to nothing. El Farolito’s soccer team has made a habit of doing this as surely as El Farolito taqueria has made a habit of serving oversize burritos.
On this night, Kevin González, the 33-year-old goalkeeper, was the reason. Time and again — a diving save here, a punch clear there, a chest stop in the 66th minute that kept the score level — he stood between his team and elimination.
In the 35th minute, Dembor Bengtson rose to meet a ball with his head and sent it crashing off the right post. It was the closest El Farolito would come to scoring. From the Sacramento stands came the response: “Go back to Sunday league!”
El Farolito’s attacking options were limited early on. Edgard Kreye, one of the team’s midfield engines, was dealing with a back injury that restricted his movement and forced an early substitution.
That left Herlbert Soto as the team’s most dangerous outlet. Twice he found himself in promising positions. It wasn’t enough.
Before extra time, in the huddle near the halfway line, it was Jerson Malagón who spoke. The new Colombian defender, playing his first U.S. Open Cup match, had already saved El Farolito once, clearing a ball off the line in the 74th minute. Now he looked at his teammates and screamed:
“¡Corremos como si nos fuera a buscar ICE!”
We run like ICE is coming for us.
There was laughter. And then they ran.
It wasn’t enough. Sacramento’s Forster Ajago headed in a Dominik Wanner cross early in the 95th minute, just after the start of extra time, to break the deadlock. Ajago completed his brace in the 122nd minute, blocking a clearance by González that deflected into the net — a cruel way to seal it.
In between, Kipre Sacre was shown a straight red card in the 101st minute for a challenge on Rohan Chivukula that appeared to many watching as sloppy at worst.
Coach López earned a yellow of his own shortly after, for continuing to protest what he and his staff felt was a night of consistently poor officiating. Yabur and Malagón picked up late bookings for dissent.
Jonathan Mosquera, the 38-year-old captain who had missed last year’s defeat through injury and had spent months waiting for this chance, was substituted off in the 106th minute — physically spent, visibly frustrated.
“Tengo que resolver,” he had muttered at halftime, blaming himself for a miscommunication that had put González in danger. He never got his resolution.
Sacramento Republic called Wednesday night’s game “a newly established rivalry.” They weren’t wrong, although perhaps a bit polite after what followed Ajago’s second goal.
After the Sacramento player taunted the El Farolito bench in the closing moments and Yabur took exception, what came next lasted several minutes: A full brawl involving nearly every player on both sides, including those who had already left the field injured.
Almost no one stood apart. One Sacramento staff member was among the first involved. Security came sprinting. López walked away with his clothing torn. Yabur received a red card. The game never restarted.
When it finally seemed to be over, it wasn’t. The fight shifted to the stands, where Farolito families were sitting. Several players climbed up from the field to reach them.
El Farolito left Sacramento with a loss and two red cards. But, also, a goalkeeper who proved he belongs on any field.
The regular season opens next month.
This reporting is extremely favorable to El Farolito. The majority of the blame for this fiasco belongs with the ref for not controlling the game and calling the persistent and cheap fouls committed by the team in yellow and blue throughout the first half. The refereeing was definitely poor and inconsistent, but the EF strategy seemed to be to push, foul and delay at every possible opportunity instead of actually trying to match talent. TBF they were definitely outmatched and out played in terms of skill, speed and tactics. The ball was in their half a majority of the game. Kudos to their GK though who did stand on his head to keep them in.
As a SRFC die-hard, I will say I love El Farolito and their heart. I was at the match and while things got needlessly overheated between a few players and in the stands, lots of Farolito players were trying to deescalate things too. Some of your guys need to grow up and chill out, but still, no hard feelings on this end for anyone.
One thing for sure is that the reffing in this league sucks balls, no big arguments there. That red was probably a bit of an overreaction, but I think Sacre was the unlucky recipient of 100 minutes worth of frustration because El F was pushing it the entire time. Lots of folks were calling y’all El Flopalito for good reason. LOL