The party will rage on.

San Diego FC, rewarding and feeding off another loud capacity crowd, beat Minnesota United 1-0 Monday night to advance to the semifinals of the MLS Cup playoffs.

Thanks to Anders Dreyer’s 72nd-minute goal and the shutout, the first-year club booked Snapdragon Stadium for the Western Conference final Saturday against Vancouver.

If any MLS fan base deserves another home game, it’s SDFC’s supporters.

Capacity crowds of 32,500 have attended all three of the team’s playoff matches on the heels of a season in which the club finished fourth overall in attendance and first among teams that don’t play in NFL venues.

Monday night, the crowd’s chanting, singing and drum-banging impressed both sides.

“Great atmosphere,” said Minnesota United coach Eric Ramsay, who worked three years with global powerhouse Manchester United in England.

“We have landed in football city,” San Diego FC captain Jeppe Tverskov, who played for several years in Europe.

“I love to play in front of a lot of fans,” said an appreciative Dreyer, who clapped afterward for the supporters.

The match’s lone goal hit high notes, too.

SDFC forward Corey Baird ran down a through pass near the end line and heeled the ball backward to a perfect spot.

Dreyer ripped a left-foot shot, beating the league’s top goalkeeper inside the near post.

“I had just one thing on my mind: hitting it as hard as possible,” said Dreyer.

Making it a trifecta of excellence, the defense recorded its second consecutive shutout behind a few top-notch plays.

Right back Ian Pilcher’s clearout near the goal-line, in the 48th minute, may have been SDFC’s top defensive play of the year. A goal would’ve allowed Minnesota United to do what it does best — shepherd a lead to the finish line.

“It’s so well-deserved,” said Tverskov, commending Pilcher’s hard work behind the scenes and Pilcher’s adjustment to moving from center back.

Goalkeeper Pablo Sisniega, delivering a reprieve in the 64th minute, bought more time for SDFC’s offense to break through against Minnesota’s well-coordinated defense.

Though he lost his footing, Sisniega recovered quickly to block a Minnesota shot. And Pilcher, in protecting the 1-0 lead, denied the visitors a breakout near midfield by smartly taking down a player, well worth the yellow card.

“We just defended with heart the whole game through,” Tverskov said. “We did very well, considering this team is so dangerous on almost every set piece.”

So, on balance, it was another festival of football — SDFC midfielder Luca de la Torre’s phrase — in Mission Valley.

But there was a significant flaw in the presentation.

The pitch at Snapdragon Stadium, beaten up by the San Diego State-San Jose State football game two days earlier, was not worthy of a playoff match in America’s top men’s soccer league.

It was far too bumpy. And Sisniega said he slipped on sand, nearly enabling Minnesota to score a cheap goal to say nothing about increasing injury risk.

Ramsay praised SDFC, but deemed the subpar pitch an unfortunate aspect to the match.

Before he answered questions from reporters, Tverskov brought up the pitch, calling it the worst home surface of the season.

“The pitch needs to go,” Tversko said. “There’s no in between.”

Ramsay said SDFC actually would’ve benefited the most from a good-quality surface, noting that San Diego, which led the MLS in ball possession this season, tends to “dominate the ball.”

Dreyer was kinder than Tverskov and others about the pitch, saying bumpy surfaces are part of the sport.

It appears that neither a shoddy field, sickness nor jet lag can deter Denmark’s Dreyer, who in recent days was shut down by a virus that had him throwing up eight days ago in Europe. From last Monday through Wednesday, he was plagued by headaches.

Then he boarded the long flights back to San Diego.

He said he wasn’t at full speed on Monday. But when Baird teed him up, he looked as sharp as he has all year.

Next, Dreyer will lead SDFC against Vancouver for the third time. SDFC won in Canada and the teams played to a tie in Mission Valley. But this time, German star forward Thomas Müller will be with Vancouver.

“The good news,” said Dreyer, “is I can relax a little bit” in the next few days.

SDFC fans may need some time to recover, too. Come Saturday, they’ll be ready.

MLS Western Conference Final: No. 1 San Diego FC vs. No. 2 Vancouver Whitecaps

When: 6 p.m. Saturday

TV: AppleTV

Radio: 760-AM, 1700-AM (Spanish)

Retail giant Amazon plans to shed more than 100 San Diego jobs related to software development, which has been tied to artificial intelligence gains and a struggling video game division.

Amazon will lay off 145 workers in San Diego, with their last day set as Jan. 26, said a WARN notice required by state law. It was part of a nationwide layoff of 14,000 corporate workers.

The Seattle-based company had been increasing its San Diego office presence — outside of its retail warehouses — since 2017. It has hired hundreds of local video game developers, software engineers and numerous positions related to technology.

In a blog post, the company said the nationwide layoffs were part of an effort to be leaner and less bureaucratic. It also cited AI as a reason to cut costs.

“This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones),” wrote Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon. “We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and businesses.”

While dozens of different positions were listed on the San Diego WARN notice, the single biggest cuts were to software development engineers, with more than 50 positions eliminated. Many analysts, like those at Goldman Sachs, have listed the position as one of the most vulnerable to AI. Writing simpler code, for everything from mobile phone applications to computer software, can be done more quickly by AI than a human, they say.

Kevin Carroll, executive director of industry trade group Tech San Diego, said artificial intelligence has slowed hiring for junior software developers, but it hasn’t been a bloodbath of firings. He said software developers are still needed because AI can’t do everything.

“I don’t want to minimize the impact (AI) will have,” he said, “but you are still going to need those mid- to senior-level software developers to manage that.”

Carroll said that San Diegans concerned with the local economy shouldn’t worry too much about the negative effects of AI. He said Qualcomm’s major AI focus, recently announcing new AI accelerator chips, and an abundance of skilled computer engineering students graduating from local universities, will likely make the region a hub for the young technology’s growth.

Software developers are still sought-after, according to state data that aggregates job listings. It was the fourth-most sought position in September in San Diego County with 769 job advertisements. Yet that is down from the heyday of 2018 to 2019 when it was the most in-demand position. There were 1,688 ads for software developers in August 2019.

Amazon hasn’t been shy about saying AI could change its business. CEO Andy Jassy wrote a blog post in June where he talked about major investments in the technology and what it could mean.

“As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,” he wrote. “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”

Using AI as a reason for layoffs has now coined a new term, “AI washing.” The concept, cited by CNBC in several articles, has several experts claiming many large companies are using it as a justification for old-fashioned cost-cutting.

Another factor at play in the Amazon layoffs is its struggling video game division, which is primarily based in San Diego and Irvine. It was unclear from the company how many of the 14,000 job cuts were related to the division.  Steve Boom, vice president of Audio, Twitch, and Games, sent a letter (obtained by Deadline and other publications) to workers in late October that stated it needed to take a “critical look at the evolving dynamics of the games industry.”

Amazon leases roughly 250,000 square feet of office space in San Diego, mostly in the University Center area, said retail tracker CoStar. The layoffs aren’t expected to cause enough of a disturbance to require the company to pull out of leases. For comparison, Amazon owns or leases roughly 6.5 million square feet of warehouse space across San Diego County for its robust retail operation. It also has a 344,000-square-foot warehouse in Tijuana.

Amazon said in its’ layoff blog post that it would be offering most of the laid-off workers 90 days to look for a new job within the company, and recruiting teams will prioritize internal candidates for open jobs.

For those who can’t find other Amazon jobs, the company said it will offer severance pay, outplacement services and health insurance benefits for an unspecified amount of time.

San Diego County supervisors Paloma Aguirre and Monica Montgomery Steppe have proposed an expansion of residential withdrawal management, commonly known as detox services.

At a press conference earlier this month, they discussed the new treatment beds that will be added in the region. This initiative aims to combat homelessness and substance use for county residents.

“Homelessness and substance abuse disorder continue to be among the biggest challenges facing San Diego County,” Aguirre said. “Every night an estimated 10,000 people sleep unsheltered, and in the past year alone, 293 lives were lost from drug- or alcohol-related causes. 

“These numbers represent real people and a system that needs to do better. We have a chance to change that. To build a system that saves lives instead of losing them.”

In District 1, only two withdrawal management beds are available to residents, a number that Aguirre said is far too low to accommodate the community.

“That leaves many waiting in the emergency room or struggling in the streets without support,” she said. “This isn’t about a lack of compassion, it’s about the need for urgency.”

Aguirre announced that 44 new treatment beds are being added downtown, which is enough to help 2,700 people each year to take the first step toward recovery, stability and housing.

Montgomery Steppe, who represents District 4, said that downtown and central San Diego are home to the most people experiencing homelessness while being impacted by drug use.

She hopes that with the increase in the number of withdrawal management beds, those who need help will be able to obtain it faster and more efficiently.

“Addiction doesn’t stop at district boundaries; it’s a countywide challenge that demands resources where the need is greatest,” Montgomery Steppe said. “Every day, San Diegans struggling with substance use disorder are reaching out for help, and too often they are being told there are no beds available for them.”