Three games in 24 hours last week. A cup already won in Milwaukee. A cross-country flight that landed two days before kickoff. None of it slowed El Farolito’s soccer team down.
San Francisco’s “Burrito Boys” beat Bristol Rhythm AFC 3-0 on Saturday night in Bristol, Va., to win the National Premier Soccer League for the second time in three seasons — something no club has done in the league’s 23-year history. It was El Farolito’s third consecutive trip to the final — also a first — and a return to form after last year’s 3-2 loss to Hickory FC at Kezar Stadium.
Bristol, unbeaten and roared on by a record crowd of 2,159, came out swinging — four first-half shots on goal — but never solved keeper Julian Escobar. El Farolito answered the only way it knows how: pass, pass, pass, dragging the Rhythm around the pitch until its players’ legs went. Direct when it mattered, composed in the final third, El Farolito went into the break level only because Bristol’s Golden Glove keeper Noe Delmotte kept pulling out saves.
He couldn’t hold on forever. Two minutes into the second half, coach Santiago López’s super sub Kipre Sacre — on to find a spark, delivering a fire — rose to head home a Jonathan Valdivia cross.
Then came the turn. Bristol’s Patrick Enchill was sent off, and while the Rhythm were still remonstrating over the call, El Farolito simply carried on playing. Off another Valdivia delivery, Dembor Bengtson rolled free through the middle and finished for 2-0 in the 59th — his 17th goal of the season, enough to claim the NPSL Golden Boot outright after entering the day tied at 16.
Sacre sealed his brace in stoppage time, converting Valdivia’s third assist of the night. Man of the Match honors, and the best moment of his career, in his words: “My coach told me I had to score, and that’s what I tried to do.”
This is simply who El Farolito is now — perennial contenders, the big fish in the NPSL pond, a squad of veterans who have known the ball since the cradle and one another for years, with López in his 16th season at the helm.
“For the past four years I’ve kept the same core together,” López told NPSL.com after the game. “We’re like a family now.”
