After falling behind the New York Cosmos, San Francisco responded with two goals to win their first home game of the fall season. Here are three things we learned from the game:

1) The team responded well to the loss of Cristian Portilla

A day before the Cosmos game the team learned they would be without defensive midfielder Cristian Portilla for the remainder of the NASL season because of an ACL tear.

To deal with the loss of Portilla, Deltas coach Marc Dos Santos rolled out a 3-4-1-2 formation with Michael Stephens and Tyler Gibson combining to take over the role. The two players were able to consistently apply defensive pressure and gum up the inside attack against New York. Greg Jordan subbed in late in the match to help kill off the game.

The Deltas will continue to miss Portilla’s important contributions but it looks like his loss is not a fatal blow to the team’s chances to qualify for the NASL postseason.

2) Dagoberto was instrumental in the Deltas’ success against NYC

Coach Dos Santos said he was going to incorporate Dagoberto slowly into the team in the Fall Season. But it appeared that Portilla’s injury forced his hand. The Brazilian started as an attacking midfielder slotted in behind Tommy Heinemann and Danny Cruz.

Dagoberto had a hand in the first goal when his free kick set up Hopkins, and his pressure in the box forced a handball from a Cosmos defender to set up the winning penalty kick.

In the second half the Brazilian also setup Heinemann who almost scored the team’s third goal. It’s looking like the Dagoberto addition to the team will continue to provide big dividends for San Francisco.

3) The fans responded with the second largest attendance at Kezar Stadium

Two weeks ago San Francisco Deltas CEO Brian Helmick wrote a blog post to the team’s fans noting that the team had to improve attendance to guarantee future seasons for the pro soccer team. On Saturday night fans responded with the second best attendance for the team when 3,369 fans came out to Kezar.

The Deltas have done better than the two previous pro soccer teams that played at Kezar Stadium. According to Tom Simpson, former coach of the San Francisco Seals who played in the USL A-League in 1998 and 1999, said the Seals averaged around 1,000 fans per game the two seasons playing in San Francisco. In 2007 the California Victory played one season in the USL First Division. They averaged less than a 1000 fans per match according to Mike Pizzo the team’s former director of gameday operations.

Above 3,000 fans the atmosphere inside Kezar is excellent for a soccer game. But 3,000 is most likely lower than the team needs to survive long term. It will be interesting to see if the Deltas can keep the momentum going see with the next two home games against North Carolina FC on August 19th and then FC Edmonton on August 26th. Neither team is as big of a draw as the Cosmos.