When the San Jose Earthquakes host Los Angeles FC on Saturday in Santa Clara, Calif., the normal home of the San Francisco 49ers, they will face what’s expected to be one of the largest crowds of the MLS season.
“Different venue, more people, bigger crowd, new field,” said San Jose midfielder Niko Tsakiris. “Yes, that is going to be a fun one.”
Maybe more fun for the Earthquakes (12-8-5, 41 points) if Tsakiris continues to play at the level he’s recently established. After logging a goal and two assists in a 3-2 win at San Diego Sept. 9, Tsakiris helped San Jose blank Houston 1-0 in its last fixture on Sept. 12.
Those back-to-back wins have, for now, restored San Jose’s momentum while re-establishing it as a team to watch down the stretch. It comes into this match fourth in the West table.
“Maybe we’re back to what we were, who we were at the beginning of the year,” Tsakiris said.
That’s a top 10 offense (44 goals) with a top half of the league defense that’s getting help from goalie Angus Gunn. The Scottish goalie at this summer’s World Cup made five saves in the clean sheet over Houston.
Meanwhile, LAFC (11-8-7, 40 points) are searching for their best form. They are coming off a drab 3-1 loss on September 12 at Sporting Kansas City, which came into the fixture with the worst goal differential in MLS but routinely shredded a defense that owns a club-record 13 clean sheets.
“You don’t win games by looking at standings,” said LAFC coach Marc Dos Santos. “You win them on the field.”
LAFC fell to 1-3-4 in their last eight matches and offense has been a surprising problem. Despite the presence of Denis Bouanga and Son Heung-min, arguably the league’s top attacking duo, they have managed just seven goals in that span.
LAFC will seek revenge for a 4-1 loss to San Jose on April 19, when Ousseni Bouda scored a second-half brace. It was the Earthquakes’ first win in the teams’ last five MLS meetings.
–Field Level Media
