The San Jose Earthquakes time and time again during their match against Charlotte FC take the ball up the field in the Coachella Valley Invitational in Indio CA on Sat Feb 7, 2026 (San Jose Earthquakes X photo)

By William Espy

The San Jose Earthquakes kicked off their public preseason at the Coachella Valley Invitational as they faced off against Charlotte FC at Empire Polo Club, Indio, CA which concluded in a 2-2 draw.

San Jose Starting XI: Daniel, DeJuan Jones, Reid Roberts, Daniel Munie, Benji Kikanovic, Beau Leroux, Ronaldo Vieira, Niko Tsakiris, Jamar Ricketts, Ousseni Bouda, Preston Judd.

After a scoreless first half hour, the Earthquakes made a couple of changes bringing on Vitor Costa and Jack Skahan for DeJuan Jones and Preston Judd. 

Despite Charlotte controlling play toward the end of the first half, San Jose native Beau Leroux opened the scoring for the Earthquakes off of a pass by Ousseni Bouda, making it 1-0 in the 41st minute. A couple of minutes later, Ronaldo Vieira was shown the game’s first yellow card for a challenge on Luca De La Torre. 

The Earthquakes carried their lead into the halftime break. 

The Quakes came out of the gate with a lot of attacking pressure in the second half. There was a big collision between Jamar Ricketts and Jack Neeley when they were both looking up at the ball in the 53rd minute. Both returned to their feet, avoiding the worst possible outcome. Ricketts was shown a yellow card on the play. 

Wilfried Zaha and Vieira collided in the 60th minute causing another slight delay. Zaha was taken down again, this time by Leroux, right outside of the box  about a minute later. 

Just after the hour mark, the Earthquakes made quite a few changes. Daniel, Vieira, and Reid Roberts came out of the game, while Earl Edwards Jr, Dave Romney and Ian Harris came into the game.

Benji Kikanovic was shown a yellow card for a challenge on Zaha in the 65th minute. In the 67th minute, Charlotte got their best scoring chance to this point as they hit the goalpost. 

When all was said and done, the Quakes held on to their clean sheet and walked away with a 1-0 victory to kick off their preseason in Indio.