Saturday’s match in Mission Valley will pose San Diego FC a revealing test that has roots in the San Diego Sockers peak era, which rocked the city’s Sports Arena in the 1980s and early 1990s. Under coach and former Sockers player Brian Schmetzer, who still shares wisdom he got from the late Kaz Deyna, the Seattle Sounders have become a top-tier franchise in Major League Soccer. Defeating the Sounders would be no less a feat than SDFC’s wins over former MLS champions LA Galaxy and LAFC. Twelfth-place Seattle trails third-place San Diego by five points in the Western Conference through six matches, but Schmetzer’s program doesn’t stay down for long. The franchise’s win total under Schmetzer, who took over in July 2016, leads MLS. Led by the 62-year-old Seattle native, the Sounders have won two MLS Cups and reached four finals. Coach Mikey Varas’ club is dangerous, too. Impressing Schmetzer, SDFC has won the possession game in all six matches. “Their record is very good for an expansion franchise,” he said by phone this week. The Sounders strive to dominate possession, too. “So,” Schmetzer coach said, “that should be a good matchup – to see which team can possess the ball more.” The ex-Sockers fullback agreed that of the two offenses, San Diego’s has performed the best. “But,” he said, “we’re a good defensive team. And not just last year, but the year before and the year before.” With the Sockers, Schmetzer got a valuable soccer education plus three championship rings in his early-to-mid 20s. He learned much from Deyna, a former international star. As a boy, Schmetzer watched the midfielder lead Poland to Olympic gold in 1972 and a World Cup run in 1974, finishing third. “He was such a simple soccer player,” the coach said. “But his vision and his decision making were second to none within our group. You could never steal a ball from him, even though he wasn’t very fast. His vision was so good. He would see you coming. Or, he would see a pass that nobody else could see and he would be able to deliver that pass.” Schmetzer still teaches what Deyna taught him. “It’s about vision being the key,” he said. “You can’t make a good decision unless you see the whole field.” Deyna died in 1989, when he crashed into a parked truck on Interstate 15 near Mira Mesa. Deyna, 41, had a blood alcohol limit that was twice the legal limit. Schmetzer admired Brian Quinn, too. The Irish midfielder, an ace at running a game, led the Sockers to eight consecutive titles. Teammate Fernando Clavijo hastened his growth on defense. The Uruguayan’s speed and skill would help the U.S. upset Colombia at the 1994 World Cup. The two Sockers fullbacks began many days together at an eatery near the Sports Arena, and remained friends until Clavijo’s death at 63. After joining the Sockers at 22, Schmetzer discovered they were a fun-loving but rough bunch. On the road, a visitor to the team hotel might encounter a Sockers player duct-taped, naked, to a chair inside an elevator. Hardened veterans could be ruthless toward teammates who were viewed as potential obstacles to winning another title. “You had to have thick skin because if you couldn’t take a little bit of joking around or kidding about yourself, they would ostracize you from the group,” Schmetzer said. “Life lessons there, I guess.” As a soccer-loving teenager, fresh out of high school, Schmetzer, chose to play for the Sounders for only $750 per month. But the North American Soccer League wasn’t far from folding, a factor in his move indoors to the Sockers. After his playing career, when he was scraping by in odd soccer jobs and a construction business, he took a full- coaching job with the Sounders in the United Soccer League. The franchise’s move into MLS saw Schmetzer serve under head coach Sigi Schmid, whom he would succeed. The coach mentioned three ingredients to his career success: good players, his willingness to learn from a broad variety of people, including opponents, and top-notch support staff and mentors such as Schmid. Schmetzer’s creativity has proved an asset, too. He has fashioned effective metaphors out of the region’s gray winters and a historic sports feat by a local team — the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew that stunned the world by defeating the German team rowing for Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. “When people come to Seattle, it’s the Pacific Northwest, and there’s that little bit of grit that comes from living up here,” he said. “One of my favorite books is Boys in the Boat (about the UW crew’s ascent). And we never quit. We’ve come back and won some games we’re down 3-nothing. “So,” he added, “that grittiness, that expectation for even the attacking players to defend, is what’s made us a team that’s hard to beat.” For SDFC, inspiration can come from what Seattle has accomplished under the ex-Socker. And that goes beyond the two MLS titles. Three years ago Schmetzer’s team became the first MLS club to win Concacaf Champions League, defeating Pumas of Mexico City before an announced crowd of 68,741 in Seattle. The victory landed the Sounders in this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup 2025, the biggest tournament in the history of global club soccer. Seattle’s 1-2-3 record, then, is deceiving. Count on this: a win tonight would be extra sweet for the San Diego newbies.