{"id":276320,"date":"2026-04-20T03:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T03:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/276320\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T03:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T03:24:10","slug":"liftoff-timo-werner-scores-first-mls-goal-in-san-joses-statement-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/276320\/","title":{"rendered":"Liftoff! Timo Werner scores first MLS goal in San Jose’s statement victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Jose Earthquakes<\/a> are sending shockwaves around the league, and now their biggest star is clicking with his new team.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see that Timo\u2019s going to be a special player for us,\u201d head coach Bruce Arena said postgame. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a little time to get his fitness and his rhythm, but he\u2019s a special player.<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s going to be a great addition to our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Opening his account<\/p>\n

Werner opened his Earthquakes account in style on Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire, amidst a remarkable 4-1 thrashing<\/a> of LAFC<\/a> at BMO Stadium.<\/p>\n

Moments after delivering an excellent assist to Ousseni Bouda<\/a> to take the lead, Werner weaved through LAFC\u2019s defense, scoring a special solo goal.<\/p>\n

The sequence showcased both his speed and quality on the ball, reminiscent of his best moments in the English Premier League and the German Bundesliga.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very happy to score my first goal,\u201d Werner said postgame. \u201cIt\u2019s always important for every player on the pitch, but especially for strikers to score goals and make assists.<\/p>\n

“It helps you build a lot of confidence, to build the trust from the team. In general, it\u2019s always good helping the team and today I could do that with the goal as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former UEFA Champions League-winning Chelsea forward looks like the missing piece for a Quakes team that has already been a revelation so far in 2026 under Bruce Arena. Starting this weekend on the left side, Werner has been impactful in his early MLS minutes, with three assists, and now has his first goal to show for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s twice as fun when you can score a nice goal,\u201d Werner said. \u201cI think in general it was simply important for me just to score a goal, to finally get on the scoresheet. I think goalscoring hasn\u2019t really been there for me recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think because we scored the first goal today, we won the game; that\u2019s why I\u2019m happy that I could help, that I could set that up, and that we won the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Best-ever start<\/p>\n

The dominant scoreline \u2013 which put an exclamation point on San Jose\u2019s second-ever win at LAFC \u2013 extends their lead over their California rivals in the standings and puts them level with Thomas M\u00fcller<\/a>\u2019s Vancouver Whitecaps FC<\/a> atop the Western Conference, with 21 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s been a remarkable turnaround for a team that missed the playoffs last season, with many familiar faces from the roster that took the field a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the players who are playing now got beat up last year to get the experience they needed to be where they are today,\u201d Arena said. \u201cIt was a real learning tool last year for a number of our guys; we suffered a bit, but it\u2019s paid off this year because they were much more prepared to play.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a good group of players to work with, they\u2019re a really good group.”<\/p>\n

With seven wins from eight games, including head-turning victories over Philadelphia, Vancouver, and San Diego, it makes 2026 the best statistical start to a season in club history for San Jose, who have seven wins from its first eight matches.<\/p>\n

With several more big in-conference matches \u2013 specifically rematches with Seattle and Vancouver on the horizon \u2013 Arena will hope they can continue to maintain the same attacking and defensive rhythm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Jose Earthquakes are sending shockwaves around the league, and now their biggest star is clicking with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[117405,11413,11414,88,1084,90,89,6532,98582,53488],"class_list":{"0":"post-276320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-lafcvssj-04-19-2026","9":"tag-match-reaction","10":"tag-priority-match","11":"tag-san-jose","12":"tag-san-jose-earthquakes","13":"tag-san-jose-headlines","14":"tag-san-jose-news","15":"tag-sendtonews","16":"tag-sunday-night-soccer","17":"tag-timo-werner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276320","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=276320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}