{"id":263991,"date":"2026-04-12T13:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T13:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/263991\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T13:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T13:47:08","slug":"no-werner-no-problem-san-jose-eartquakes-extend-historic-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/263991\/","title":{"rendered":"No Werner, no problem: San Jose Eartquakes extend historic start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Timo Werner<\/a> has missed two straight games for the San Jose Earthquakes<\/a> with a lower-body injury. Surely, that would derail the club’s roaring start to the 2026 season?<\/p>\n

San Jose cruised to a 3-1 comeback win<\/a> at Sporting Kansas City<\/a> on Saturday night, led by a brace from Jack Skahan<\/a>, a Dave Romney<\/a> goal and two assists from Niko Tsakiris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With that result, head coach Bruce Arena’s side extended their club-record start to 6W-1L-0D and drew level with first-place Vancouver Whitecaps FC<\/a> on 18 points in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n

“To be in this position at this point in the season is great, but we know it\u2019s a long haul,” said Arena. “It\u2019s 34 games. I said last week we could possibly lose our next 28 games. That\u2019s not going to be the case anymore, but it\u2019s going to be a battle.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s great to have a good start and have the 18 points, but we need to get 30-35 more points during the regular season to be a team well-positioned for the playoffs.”<\/p>\n

\n Team effort<\/p>\n

Now in their second season under Arena, San Jose have taken significant strides despite losing star attackers\u00a0Cristian Espinoza<\/a> and Josef Mart\u00ednez from their 2025 squad. Additionally, Hern\u00e1n L\u00f3pez<\/a> and Chicho Arango<\/a> are both on loan to South American teams.<\/p>\n

They’ve also had Werner for just four of their seven games thus far, the German star playing 200 minutes since arriving after Matchday 1.<\/p>\n

That’s mattered little to Arena’s team, which has conceded a league-low two goals and narrowly trails West-leading Vancouver on goal differential (+11 for San Jose, +15 for Vancouver).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost a locker-room thing,” Skahan said of the hot start.<\/p>\n

“The unity of the team \u2013 we run for each other. We\u2019re not playing with egos. We pass to the open guy. We attack together. We don\u2019t care who scores.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Big showdown<\/p>\n

San Jose expect a boost, too, with Arena noting postgame that Werner “should be ready this week.”<\/p>\n

That could leave the former Premier League and Bundesliga star ready for a road showdown with Son Heung-Min<\/a> and LAFC<\/a> on April 19 for Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire (7 pm ET |\u00a0Apple TV<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Long-term, San Jose are chasing their first Audi MLS Cup Playoffs trip since a Wild Card appearance in 2023. They also have room to swing big this summer, with Werner their only active Designated Player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Timo Werner has missed two straight games for the San Jose Earthquakes with a lower-body injury. Surely, that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[11413,88,1084,90,89,6532,114458],"class_list":{"0":"post-263991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-match-reaction","9":"tag-san-jose","10":"tag-san-jose-earthquakes","11":"tag-san-jose-headlines","12":"tag-san-jose-news","13":"tag-sendtonews","14":"tag-skcvssj-04-11-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263991","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=263991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}