Earthqakes celebrate their win over Sporting KC at Pay Pal Park in San Jose on Sat Feb 21, 2026 (San Jose Earthquakes photo)

By William Espy

SAN JOSE–The San Jose Earthquakes kicked off the regular season on Saturday night as they hosted Sporting Kansas City in their home opener shutting out Sporting KC 3-0. Star signing Timo Werner remained out of the lineup for Bruce Arena’s side, as he continues to sort out visa issues for his move to the United States.

The Earthquakes applied a lot of pressure early, earning a couple of shots in the fourth minutes. Jamar Ricketts’ speed was doing wonders for the Quakes defensively as well, as he was regularly beating Shapi Suleymanov to the ball in the corner.

Ronaldo Vieira fired a shot from just outside of the 18-yard box that went narrowly wide of the goal, nearly giving the Quakes an early lead in the 12th minute. Roughly a minute later, Benji Kikanovic found Ousseni Bouda in quite a bit of space, but his shot was deflected out of play, and the Earthquakes were once again denied on a great scoring chance.

Beau Leroux became the third Earthquake to nearly get his team the go-ahead goal in the 29th minute, but again it went just wide. Suleymanov got a talking to from the official in the 32nd minute after a challenge on Ricketts led to some shoving and an Earthquakes free kick.

As the game seemed to be slipping out of the referee’s control, he showed Daniel Munie the first yellow card of the night in the 36th minute. In the 42nd minute, Munie would be the one to score San Jose’s first goal of the season. Off a Niko Tsakiris corner kick, the ball landed directly in front of the goal line, and Munie was able to put it past John Pulskamp, giving the Earthquakes a 1-0 lead. In stoppage time, moments after being the first to congratulate Munie, Preston Judd scored his first of the season, doubling the Earthquakes’ lead ahead of halftime.

Daniel made a big save early in the 49th minute to maintain the Quakes’ two-goal lead. Munie made it a brace with his second goal of the night with a header in the 55th minute, making it 3-0 for the Quakes.

Arena made a change in the 66th minute, taking out Vieira for Ian Harkes. Vitor Costa and Jack Skahan joined him on the pitch a few minutes later,0 taking the place of Judd and DeJuan Jones.

Paul Marie and new signing Jonathan Gonzalez were brought into the game with roughly ten minutes left in the game.

Ultimately, when the referee blew the final whistle, the Earthquakes walked away with a 3-0 victory to kick off their 2026 season.