SAN JOSE, CALIF. \u2013 Sounders FC (3-1-0, 9 points) earned a 1-0 road victory over the San Jose Earthquakes (3-1-0, 9 points) on Sunday evening at PayPal Park. Paul Rothrock scored the lone goal of the match for his team-leading third of the season in all competitions, courtesy of Jes\u00fas Ferreira\u2019s team-leading fifth all-competitions assist of 2026. Andrew Thomas recorded his third shutout of the season, as the Rave Green withstood constant pressure from the home side in the second half, with the Earthquakes out-shooting Seattle 24-7 and holding a 17-0 advantage on corner kicks.<\/p>\n
With the result, Seattle sits in fifth place in the Western Conference with nine points (3-1-0), three points behind conference leaders Vancouver and LAFC.<\/p>\n
Tonight marked Seattle\u2019s 43rd\u00a0regular-season contest against San Jose, making the Earthquakes Seattle\u2019s most-played opponent in the regular season. The Rave Green hold a 17-15-11 record against San Jose in the series.<\/p>\n
Paul Rothrock scored his team-leading third goal of the season (all competitions) in the 20th\u00a0minute. This marks the second consecutive match with a strike for Rothrock, who found the net on Thursday against Vancouver in 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup action.<\/p>\n
Jes\u00fas Ferreira and Danny Musovski assisted Rothrock\u2019s strike. It was Ferreira\u2019s team-leading fifth assist in five matches (all competitions) and Musovski\u2019s first of the season.<\/p>\n
Tacoma Defiance defender Antino Lopez and midfielder Peter Kingston were both in the starting XI tonight via Short-Term Agreements.<\/p>\n
Brian Schmetzer heavily rotated his lineup from Seattle\u2019s 3-0 win on Thursday over Vancouver in 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup play, with Andrew Thomas, Cody Baker, Lopez, Kingston, Nikola Petkovi\u0107, Rothrock, Georgi Minoungou and Danny Musovski replacing Stefan Frei, Kalani Kossa-Rienzi, Alex Roldan, Cristian Roldan, Snyder Brunell, Albert Rusn\u00e1k, Paul Arriola and Osaze De Rosario.<\/p>\n
It was the first start of the season for Baker, Lopez, Kingston, Petkovi\u0107, Minoungou and Musovski, and first career starts for Lopez and Kingston.<\/p>\n
10 of the 16 players who saw the field this evening for Seattle came up through Tacoma Defiance, the club\u2019s MLS NEXT Pro affiliate (Thomas, Baker, Lopez, Jackson Ragen, Nouhou, Kingston, Brunell, Rothrock, Minougou, De Rosario).<\/p>\n
Nouhou wore the captain\u2019s armband for Sounders FC this evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following tonight\u2019s match, Seattle resumes 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup action with its leg two matchup against Vancouver Whitecaps FC on Wednesday, March 18 at ONE Spokane Stadium (8:00 p.m. PT \/ FS2, TUDN,\u00a0Concacaf.com). The match is being played in Spokane due to Lumen Field undergoing preparations for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The club then resumes league play when it travels to Minnesota United FC on Sunday, March 22 at Allianz Field (11:30 a.m. PT \/ Apple TV, 950 KJR FM, El Rey 1360 AM).<\/p>\n
Seattle Sounders FC 1 \u2013 San Jose Earthquakes 0<\/p>\n
Assistants:\u00a0Corey Rockwell, Kali Smith<\/p>\n
Fourth Official:\u00a0Nabil Bensalah<\/p>\n
Weather:\u00a049 degrees and clear<\/p>\n
SEA \u2013\u00a0Paul Rothrock (Jes\u00fas Ferreira, Danny Musovski) 20\u2019<\/p>\n
SEA \u2013\u00a0Nouhou (caution) 10\u2019<\/p>\n
SEA \u2013\u00a0Nikola Petkovi\u0107 (caution) 46\u2019<\/p>\n
SEA \u2013\u00a0Danny Musovski (caution) 56\u2019<\/p>\n
SEA \u2013\u00a0Peter Kingston (caution) 59\u2019<\/p>\n
SJ \u2013\u00a0Nick Tsakiris (caution) 86\u2019<\/p>\n
Seattle Sounders FC \u2013\u00a0Andrew Thomas; Cody Baker, Antino Lopez, Jackson Ragen, Nouhou \u2013 captain; Peter Kingston (Snyder Brunell 86\u2019), Nikola Petkovi\u0107 (Alex Roldan 65\u2019); Paul Rothrock, Jes\u00fas Ferreira (Albert Rusn\u00e1k 46\u2019), Georgi Minoungou (Cristian Roldan 65\u2019); Danny Musovski (Osaze De Rosario 65\u2019)<\/p>\n
Substitutes not used:\u00a0Stefan Frei, Kalani Kossa-Rienzi, Sebastian Gomez, Paul Arriola<\/p>\n
San Jose Earthquakes \u2013\u00a0Daniel De Sousa; Nick Tsakiris, Daniel Munie, Rodrigues Vieira, Benjamin Kikanovic (Paul Marie 90+1\u2019); Beau Leroux (Niko Fernandez 77\u2019), Robert Roberts; Preston Judd, Ousseni Bouda (Jack Skahan 77\u2019), Timo Werner; DeJuan Jones (Vitor Costa 57\u2019)<\/p>\n
Substitutes not used:\u00a0Jonathan Gonz\u00e1lez, Dave Romney, Eriq Edwards Jr., Ian Harkes, Jacob Ricketts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, CALIF. \u2013 Sounders FC (3-1-0, 9 points) earned a 1-0 road victory over the San Jose…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2975,38553,88522,100,4894,88,90,89,12816,98583],"class_list":["post-222541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-2975","tag-app-news","tag-match-recap","tag-news","tag-press-release","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-seattle-sounders-fc","tag-sjvssea-03-15-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}