It’s ironically tough to analyze a team that won two matches by a combined 9-2 in four days. San Jose has 17 goals for and just 3 goals allowed this month, it would be like saying “yes, that teenager is dominating the rim in a basketball game against six-year-olds.”
That being said, the Earthquakes were honestly a bit lucky against LAFC in their Sunday matchup: poor Ryan Porteous had the worst eight minutes of his life early in the second half, missing an open header before getting skinned, losing his marker, and conceding an own goal. Sometimes the other team does that and you find yourself up 3-0.
I was expecting to say the Quakes were unlucky against Austin, and they certainly were in the first half. But the Texans wilted in the second half, San Jose didn’t, and 5 second-half goals won the match.
Learn from Victory
All in all, the Austin match was less interesting in terms of watchability, but had more to learn from. LAFC conceded a ton of space to Niko Tsakiris in the midfield and paid for it dearly.
Austin was probably the first team to really game plan for San Jose: they gummed up Zone 14 with Dubersarsky and Sabovic, playing exceedingly chippy in order to slow down the game. Bruce Arena brought Niko way deeper in the midfield, essentially playing him as a Pirlo-style deep-lying playmaker and challenged Timo Werner, Ousseni Bouda, Jamar Ricketts, and eventually Paul Marie to beat their markers and create chances from the wings. They did so again, and again, and again. The last few goals were basically transition goals against a team that gave up in the 75th minute.
San Jose tried something similar against Seattle: let Timo float and play 1-2s on either flank. Seattle is a lot better than Austin.
“Peaks and Valleys”
In Arena’s post-game comments, he conceded that there will be “peaks and valleys” to the season. This is probably going to be the team’s only 17-3 goal differential stretch of 2026. And there were concerns:
First, a big lunkhead center forward like CJ Fodrey did a great job occupying both San Jose centerbacks and retaining possession. This was the Quakes’ first match against that type of player, and between the route 1 soccer and chippy tackling, I’m beginning to think San Jose would struggle in the 1990s Premier League.
Second, the Quakes lost the intensity battle for the first time all season for about the first 30 minutes of the match. They won it back (and then some – see Daniel Munie making a near post run in the 89th minute up 4 goals), but the midfield trio of Ronaldo Vieira, Beau Leroux, and Tsakiris looked genuinely frustrated for the first time all season.
The next few matches will be weird. Arena probably made the right choice to keep in the starters to earn 3 points at home, and there will likely be heavily rotated squares against St. Louis City this weekend and then who knows what to expect against Toronto on the other side of the Open Cup fixture against Minnesota United. If the Quakes can get points out of those matches, move forward in Open Cup, and then keep up the momentum in May we could make our own transition from “a fun couple of months!” to a truly special season.
