A festival of football.

That’s what San Diego FC midfielder Luca de la Torre, a San Diegan marinated in European football, called recent events.

Two capacity crowds in Mission Valley. Two fast starts by the home team. Two first-round playoff victories. Some 65,000 fans reveling in SDFC’s six goals scored and vibing off the supporter groups’ chants, drum-banging and flag-waving.

The assertive soccer, yielding 2-1 and 4-0 victories in Games 1 and 3 over the eighth-seeded Portland Timbers, was the prime attraction.

Part and parcel with the sharp passing and shooting, though, was a charged atmosphere that affirmed de la Torre’s insistent claims about his hometown.

That San Diego is a “football city.”

That the world’s game is “in the blood of the people here.”

That, for too long, San Die

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