Emil Cuello posts his first goal of the season
SAN ANTONIO (July 18, 2026) – San Antonio FC dropped its first home match of the regular season Saturday, falling 2-1 to Las Vegas Lights FC at Toyota Field.
SAFC took early control with a goal in the 6th minute, as Jorge Hernandez found Emil Cuello who slotted a quick finish into the top corner of the net for the opening score.
Las Vegas equalized shortly out of the halftime break and was able to pounce on a loose ball in the box for the winning goal in the 79th minute.
Scoring Summary
SA: Emil Cuello (Assisted by Jorge Hernandez) 6’
LV: Johnny Rodriguez (Assisted by Oalex Anderson) 47’
LV: Abraham Okyere 79’
Next Up
San Antonio FC travels to face expansion side Brooklyn FC on Saturday, July 25. Kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m. CT, and the match will be broadcast on ESPN+. The 2026 season is presented by Toyota.
Postgame Notes:
- SAFC falls to 6-3-7 on the season with 25 points, remaining in second place in the Western Conference standings.
- Defender Emil Cuello scored his first goal for the club since July 2021, becoming the 15th different scorer on the team across all competitions.
- Midfielder Jorge Hernandez assisted his team-leading sixth score of the year, moving into a tie for most in the league.
- Midfielder Nicky Hernandez made his first start of the regular season.
- SAFC suffered its first loss at home of the regular season, last falling in September 2025.
Attendance: 5,983
SAFC Starting XI: Joey Batrouni, Akeem O’Connor-Ward, Danny Barbir, Alex Crognale (Captain), Tiago Suarez, Emil Cuello (Luke Haakenson 84’), Mikey Maldonado, Nicky Hernandez (Nelson Flores Blanco 71’), Curt Calov (Lucio Berron 63’), Jorge Hernandez (Cristian Parano 46’), Christian Sorto (Santiago Patiño 63’)
Substitutions Not Used: Richard Sanchez, Alexis Souahy, Leo Urrutia, Landry Walker
Disciplinary Summary:
LV: Yellow Card (Giorgio Probo) 38’
LV: Yellow Card (Themi Antonoglou) 52’
SA: Yellow Card (Danny Barbir) 59’
SA: Yellow Card (Emil Cuello) 65’
LV: Yellow Card (Aaron Guillen) 76’
SA: Red Card (Santiago Patiño) 90+3’
Quotes:
Head Coach Carlos Llamosa
(On the performance…)
“For moments early in the first half, we were switching the ball. We were finding the player on the opposite side, but then we stopped doing that, and got to give credit to Las Vegas. They forced us to play short passes. With the ball, they always found the extra men in the middle. We had to defend narrow centrally and force the ball outside, but for some reason we didn’t, so just keep working and do better next time, next game.”
(On managing the game after half time…)
“Well, that’s something that we need that we work on during the week is possessing the ball. One of our problems is we go up on the score and then we piece the ball away easily. It’s not like we don’t have space or option to play. Sometimes when we look at those videos, we had the option to play, but we lose the ball too easily, so that’s something that we need to continue working on and keeping the lead. Try to get possession of the game, make sure we make the opposition desperate, and we didn’t tonight.”
(On dropping points at home…)
“It’s a concern because that was a home game. We should go out there and work and play for the three points, but at the same time, we have a good team. We have good players, good individuals out there. We just had a bad game tonight, but we work, and I’m sure we’re going to turn this around.”
Defender Akeem O’Connor-Ward
(On the loss…)
“Yeah, it just wasn’t good enough on a lot of different fronts. From the beginning of the game, we kept dropping, dropping, dropping. We ended up getting a good goal, but kind of felt like we took our foot off the gas a little bit and then from there invited more and more pressure. We closed out the first half, which was good. I missed an opportunity, which is absolutely really frustrating for me now looking back at it, but came out of half, kind of got kind of got punched in the mouth, which shouldn’t be happening at home, and then another mistake, which is all avoidable. At that point, we’re trying to chase the game, and we just couldn’t get it done tonight, which is unfortunate because never want to drop points, let alone drop points at home, but that’s kind of how the synopsis of kind of everything went from my perspective.”
(On falling flat in the second half…)
“I’m not happy with it at the moment, obviously per the results, but I told the guys in the locker room, this is one of the, I’d say, the only teams I’ve been on where I feel something different in the locker room: the ability from the players, the leadership, the good mix between older and younger players, the experienced staff, so I’m not particularly worried about it, but I just don’t like when it happened. We have 14 games left, I believe, and the [USL] Cup, so I don’t think we’re going to take our time to figure this out. I think I think good teams go into following weeks and you know show what they’re capable of. We’ve done pretty well on the road, and so it’s going to be a tough one in Brooklyn, so it’s going to be a real character-building match for us to show and see where we’re at, and I think I think the guys were ready for it. We looked everyone in the face after the game. It was just like, ‘Okay, we have to put this one away.’ We got to take tonight, tomorrow to recover, and then Monday we’re back in, and it’s full steam ahead.”
Defender Tiago Suarez
(On the team giving up the equalizer out of halftime…)
“I will say that normally when you give up a goal early in the second half, it can determine momentum. We have a lot of veteran guys on this team that try to keep us together, and we’ve got to try to create a response together in those second halves when we first face adversity, and being at home, we need to dictate the tempo of the game a little bit more. There’s a few things we can touch up.”
(On dropping points in second halves…)
“I don’t know if I can speak to that, but I will say at home this season we have had a pretty good record. Even on the road, I believe we’re second or third place on the table right now, so I think we just have to keep going. These type of mid-season games can determine momentum, so, for us, we just have to stay together and continue to grow because it is a long season, and hopefully, when November comes, we’ll think about these games, and it won’t happen again.”
