I’d love for Major League Soccer to shorten its season and reduce travel. The soccer quality would go up. Injuries would go down. Similarly, we’d see better soccer if the league trimmed its playoff field. Call me picky, but 18 playoff teams is too many for a 30-team league. To borrow a soccer word, there’s nil chance MLS will make these changes. That’s OK. There’s still good news unfolding on the stamina-and-quality front, and it comes close to home. League newcomer San Diego FC is showing it can motor around the big fields for the full 90 minutes, far more often than not. SDFC (7-4-2) is second in the 15-team Western Conference’s standings and third in MLS scoring with 25 goals. The team’s fitness has stood out, a factor in its ability to maintain a high-energy style and score twice a match. Would you be impressed if an MLS team won three matches in eight days? SDFC can finish that hat trick by winning Saturday at home against 13th-place Sporting Kansas City. It’s appropriate that Jeppe Tverskov is SDFC’s captain. He doesn’t wear down. The 32-year-old defensive midfielder leads MLS in touches and interceptions. Fellow Danish import Anders Dreyer, 27, has played all but 30 minutes of the season — although he, too, is asked to do a lot. With six goals and five assists, Dreyer is tied for MSL honors in goals plus assists. Swedish central defender Christopher McVey, 27, has played every minute of the 13 matches, scoring twice. SDFC’s soccer skill is another boost to keeping the RPMs revved up. Because they have the ball more than their opponent — only the Columbus Crew rank higher in possession — SDFC’s players do less chasing. In the second half, when several of they’re opponents have worn down, they’ve pounced on several miscues, resulting in goals. “They can really move you around,” said Colorado Rapids coach Chris Armas, who as a defensive midfielder led Chicago to an MLS Cup and earned first-team league honors in five years. “They possess the ball really well.” By now, everyone who follows MLS knows SDFC’s leadership means serious business. The $500 million expansion fee paid by the ownership group led by Mohamed Mansour and the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, blew away the previous MLS record of $325 million paid by David Tepper to land Charlotte FC. Mansour’s net worth: $3.3 billion. So when it came to figuring how to attack the infamously grueling MLS season, SDFC put a lot of effort and money into building up its support staff. The leaders did a deep dive into how to prepare for the three-game, eight-day stretch, which began last Saturday, with a 2-1 win at St. Louis City SC and followed with the 2-0 win Wednesday against Colorado. “The conversation actually goes back to Sept 14. 2024, which is when we started planning for this week,” said Luke Jenkinson, SDFC’s head of human performance. “That was the day after Mikey Varas was announced as the manager.” This week’s match against Colorado was the team’s first Wednesday game and first match on short rest. As part of those preparations, some players were exposed to game-level physical demands two Wednesdays beforehand. “The work that we’ve done over the previous 18 weeks to get to this point, hopefully it has got us to a place where we can thrive through this little bit of a challenging period,” said Jenkinson, who brought MLS experience to the job, having worked the previous two years with D.C. United. Sports teams are keen on helping players recover fast from the stress of games and workouts. The three main elements of recovery are sleep, food and hydration, said Jenkinson. “We will look to reduce inflammation as quickly as possible, using things like high levels of turmeric, high levels of fish oil, using things like cherry juice,” said Jenkinson, who also worked with teams in England, Norway and India. “But ultimately a good night’s sleep, the right foods at the right times and hydration are all going to be big ones.” It’s colorful to believe soccer players can party all night and still light up the pitch one night later. SDFC is skeptical that’s true, investing heavily in good Zzzzzzs. “We use technologies where we monitor the sleep of players so we have that data,” Jenkinson said. “And we will work with them and do what we can do to improve that sleep quality, not just the quantity of sleep.” Twenty-one games to go. By now, the rest of the MLS isn’t sleeping on SDFC.