All-American defender Jack Jasinski of Princeton was the Earthquakes’ second-round pick. The 22-year-old Jasinski had four goals and 22 assists over 68 matches during his four-year Princeton career.
“We feel good about the SuperDraft,” said Earthquakes coach Bruce Arena. “We were able to acquire some allocation money and fill a void in our backline. The selection of Jack Jasinski in the second round gives us depth in our outside back position and we believe he will be a good fit in our team.”
D.C. United made North Carolina State defender Nikola Markovic the No. 1 overall selection of the MLS SuperDraft.
The Wolfpack lost 3-2 in overtime to Washington in the College Cup men’s national championship last weekend.
Markovic, a 6-foot-4 native of Quebec, helped the Wolfpack lead the nation with 15 shutouts; they yielded just 13 goals all season.
FC Dallas, with the second and third overall picks after trades with Atlanta United and CF Montreal, took Georgia Southern forward Ricky Louis at No. 2 and Virginia forward Nicholas Simmonds at No. 3.
UC Davis defender Zack Lillington, from San Anselmo’s Archie Williams High, was the 10th overall pick by St. Louis City.
]]>The Quakes just missed out on the playoffs in 2025, their first season under manager and sporting director Bruce Arena, the league’s all-time leader in wins. A white-hot May saw them climb the Western Conference standings, but they won just four of their last 15 MLS matches.
Here are four things to know about the 2026 schedule, the last one that’ll be contested over the summer months as the league shifts to a fall-through-spring calendar in 2027 to align with the rest of global soccer.
Opener at home
The Quakes will begin their season at home on Feb. 21 against Sporting Kansas City. The match kicks off at 7:30 p.m., like most of their matches do under the Apple TV+ schedule. Week 2 features another home match — a 4:30 p.m. kick — against Atlanta United.
Two weeks later, San Jose will host Seattle Sounders FC in a 4 p.m. Sunday match on March 15, but those are the only early kicks on the Quakes’ home schedule.
They’ll finish the season on the road with a Nov. 7 match at Minnesota United.
German star’s Bay debut
Thomas Müller, the 36-year-old German forward, is scheduled to visit San Jose for the first time on May 9 as a member of Vancouver Whitecaps FC, where he transferred in August from Bayern Munich.
Müller won the Golden Boot in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, then won the 2014 tournament with Germany in Brazil.
World Cup break
The World Cup will be held here in the United States — as well as Mexico and Canada — from June 11 through July 18. The Quakes will pause their season after a May 23 away match in Portland, resuming July 22 at home against Orlando.
The Bay won’t be without soccer, though: Levi’s Stadium will host six World Cup matches, including a Round of 32 match on July 1. Bay FC may also play at PayPal Park during that downtime as the NWSL returns from a four-week hiatus in late June.
Big-stadium rivalry games
The Earthquakes will again play two rivalry matches outside of PayPal Park, facing the LA Galaxy at Stanford Stadium for the California Clàsico on July 25. The Quakes went 1-1-1 against the Galaxy in 2025, including a 1-1 draw at Stanford on June 28.
They will also reprise the Levi’s Stadium match against in-state rival LAFC on Sept. 19, and it will again be Mexican Heritage Night. The 2025 edition of the match was the Quakes’ highest-attendance game in franchise history as they were beaten 4-2 by LA and Korean superstar Heung-Min Son, who scored in the game’s first minute.
For the full schedule, visit the Quakes’ website.
Single-game tickets for all games other than the LAFC match go on sale Tuesday on the team’s website. Tickets for the Levi’s Stadium match will be made available at a later date.
]]>Apple TV subscribers will be able to watch all Major League Soccer matches without an additional subscription beginning next year.
During the first three years of MLS’ 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement with Apple, a standalone Season Pass subscription was needed to access all matches. During this season, over 200 matches were simulcast on both MLS Season Pass and Apple TV, including the league’s “Sunday Night Soccer” package. Dropping the separate subscription was announced Thursday at an owners’ meeting.
Apple has made its Friday night Major League Baseball doubleheaders available to all subscribers since its start in 2022. It recently secured U.S. rights to Formula 1 for five years which will also be available beginning next season.
Making the MLS games more accessible also comes as the United States hosts the World Cup next year and the league contemplates switching to a late summer to spring calendar matching the European model in 2027. The current season runs from late February to early December,
MLS deputy commissioner Gary Stevenson said Apple approached MLS early this year about the possibility of moving all of its matches to Apple TV.
RELATED: MLS owners vote to shift soccer season to a late-summer to spring calendar in 2027
“We had been testing ‘Sunday Night Soccer’ on Apple TV and we got a really good reception to it. Then we talked to them about the potential schedule change and they thought that made sense. So it all kind of seemed like the perfect evolution to what we started and we think that the fans are going to find the experience and the value to be significantly better,” Stevenson said.
MLS season ticket holders will receive Apple TV subscriptions after previously receiving MLS Season Pass.
MLS said it averaged 3.7 million gross live match viewers per week across streaming and linear platforms for its 15 weekly matches, a 29% increase over 2024.
Apple has worldwide rights to MLS, which have benefitted them in South America after Lionel Messi joined Inter Miami in 2023. The league has also seen an influx of Asian viewers after Son Heung-Min began playing for LAFC in August. Messi and Son had the top two jersey sales in the league this season.
Messi and Son’s clubs have both advanced to the league quarterfinals. LAFC is at Vancouver on Nov. 22 while Inter Miami travels to Cincinnati on Nov. 23.
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]]>Major League Soccer owners voted Thursday to shift the league’s season to a late-summer to spring calendar in 2027, bringing it more in line with its international counterparts.
The shift aims to put MLS in a more competitive position for player transfers, while also freeing up players for national team duty during the summer, when many major international tournaments take place.
This season the league started play in late February, with a break for the Club World Cup over the summer. The MLS Cup championship game is set for Dec. 6.
The vote came at the Board of Governors meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. Under the new calendar, league play would kickoff in mid- to late July, with the final day of the regular season in April. The playoffs and championship would take place in May.
The league would go on an extended break during the winter, with just a few games played in early December and no games in January before resuming in early to mid-February.
RELATED: Earthquakes star Wondolowski named to U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame on first ballot
The league is working with the Major League Soccer Players Association to finalize the transition.
While there were concerns about weather challenges during the winter months, teams like Minnesota United and the Chicago Fire already face cold and sometimes snowy conditions. In a March 2024 match, Real Salt Lake and LAFC played in blizzard conditions in Sandy, Utah.
But with a warming climate, matches in the summer months have become problematic, too. Soaring temperatures were a concern at some of the Club World Cup matches this past July and August.
The current schedule was based on not only the geography of the United States, but also the tastes of the American sports fan, avoiding the crowded months when NFL plays its biggest games, and the NBA and NHL are in full swing.
The league previously considered a European schedule. There was earlier talk that the owners might approve a shift following the 2026 World Cup co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. MLS plans to break for the tournament.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
]]>Wondolowski, who announced his retirement on the field at PayPal Park following the Quakes’ final game of the 2021 season, was announced Thursday as part of the 2026 National Soccer Hall of Fame’s class of 2026. The ceremony will be May 1 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas. Former U.S. women’s star Tobin Heath also was a first-ballot selection.
“It’s an absolute honor and privilege to be inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame,” Wondolowski said in a release issued by the Quakes. “Surprise, shock, tears, joy. I’m still trying to find the words for the emotions. As a soccer fan first, I know how special it is. I remember spending hours playing in the backyard pretending to be these all-time greats. I never thought I would be such a part of that elite group.
“Thank you to the voters and everyone who helped me get here over the years, from all my teammates and coaches, to the fans, my friends, and most of all, my family. I couldn’t have done this without you. I also want to congratulate everyone else in the Class of 2026 on receiving this remarkable recognition.”
The Quakes said he learned the news that he had been elected from his family, who surprised him in his East Bay hometown of Danville.
Players need to be retired at least three seasons to be considered for induction. Wondolowski was elected from the Player Ballot, where election procedures call for the two players named on the most ballots (and on at least 50% of the ballots) to be elected. He received 37 votes from the 48-member Player Voting Committee (77.1%).
“The San Jose Earthquakes congratulate Chris Wondolowski on his election to the National Soccer Hall of Fame,” Earthquakes president Jared Shawlee said in the team’s release. “Chris has embodied everything about the club from the moment he first arrived, not just with his legendary accomplishments on the field, but also with the class and humility he has demonstrated in our community. We are so proud of him and elated to have been a part of his journey to his deserved place among soccer’s all-time greats.”
Wondolowski played for the Quakes in 14 of his 17 seasons in the MLS. He scored his 171st career goal in the first half of his final game. Following the final whistle, Wondolowski took a microphone to acknowledge the crowd and announce he’d played his final game. “Instead of doing this at a press conference,” he told the crowd of more than 17,000, “instead of a bunch of cameras, I wanted to do it in front of you guys because you guys have been there from Day 1. But this is the last ride.”
He started 313 games with the Quakes, 85 more than any other player. Wondolowski finished with 26 more goals than Landon Donovan, another former Quakes star, who is second on the MLS career scoring list.
Even before his MLS career took off, “Wondo” had deep roots in the Bay Area soccer scene. He played club soccer for the Diablo Valley Soccer Club (DVSC) and Danville Mustang Soccer Association and starred at De La Salle High and Chico State.
The forward was originally selected by the Quakes in the final round of the 2005 MLS Supplemental Draft and played in two matches, but after that season the franchise relocated to Houston.
He returned to San Jose after a mid-season trade in 2009, and broke through the following season when he led the league in with 18 goals in 26 matches to earn his first Golden Boot. In 2012, Wondolowski tied the MLS single-season record with 27 goals for his second Golden Boot. He was also named the league’s Most Valuable Player while leading San Jose to its best regular season in club history and second Supporters’ Shield. Wondolowski was named to the MLS Best XI three straight times from 2010-12.
Internationally, Wondolowski made 35 senior-level appearances for the United States Men’s National Team and scored 11 goals.
Wondolowski has served as the Quakes’ head of under-23 Individual Development Programming since he retired as a player. He was inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame in 2023 and the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 2024.
]]>FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Lionel Messi has finally agreed to a new contract with Inter Miami, a deal that required several months to complete and ensures that the sport’s biggest icon will be with the Major League Soccer club for its planned move into a new stadium next year.
The deal was announced Thursday, one day before Inter Miami’s playoff opener against Nashville. Messi’s team — the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference — will play host to Game 1 of that best-of-three series on Friday night.
The team announced the move in a social media post, one showing Messi signing the contract inside the new stadium that remains under construction. “HE’S HOME,” the team said in the post.
Inter Miami said it was a three-year deal through 2028. The notion of Messi playing two or three more seasons certainly would serve as a boost to ticket sales at the stadium the team has been building near Miami International Airport. The team has been selling ticket packages and taking deposits on seats in the new park for more than a year, all with the assumption that Messi would remain part of the franchise.
Messi’s decision to stay in Miami is big for both the club and for MLS. He was the league’s MVP last season and is the overwhelming choice to win the award again this year, which would make him only the second two-time winner in league history and the first to win it in back-to-back years. Preki won the MVP award in 1997 and 2003.
“To enjoy him, watching him enjoy doing the things he is doing, he’s very, very competitive and he tries to translate that to the team,” Inter Miami coach Javier Mascherano said Thursday. “The best way to help him is trying to do the right things … he has to be comfortable on the pitch. He’s comfortable when things are working in the right way.
“With him, when we do things the right way, we’ll have many chances to have success.”
Messi won MLS’ Golden Boot this season after scoring 29 goals, five more than LAFC’s Denis Bouanga and Nashville’s Sam Surridge. He also had 19 assists, and his 48 total goal contributions was one shy of matching the MLS record of 49 set by Carlos Vela in 2019.
This season, Messi had multiple goals in five consecutive games — making him the first MLS player to achieve such a feat — and had 10 multigoal games, another league record. The previous mark was eight such games.
Messi is 38, which makes this contract likely his last as a professional player. He has spent well over half his life playing at the pro level, making his debut with Barcelona as a 17-year-old in 2004.
It is not clear how long Messi, the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner and generally considered the sport’s biggest star, plans to keep playing. He led Argentina to the World Cup title in 2022; his country will aim to defend that trophy when the tournament is played next June and July in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
His Inter Miami team will look different in 2026, for certain. Messi agreed to join the club in July 2023 on what was a 2 1/2-year contract, and it wound up becoming a reunion of longtime Barcelona teammates when he was eventually joined by Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets and Luis Suarez.
Busquets and Alba are both retiring after this season; Alba made the decision to step away just months after agreeing to a three-year contract. Suarez’s future is unclear, and it’s believed retirement could be an option for him as well.
But Messi will play on, into 2026 anyway. He and the team were closing in toward the finish of this drawn-out contract negotiation last month, and it wasn’t clear why it took several more weeks to get Messi to finally sign the deal.
His first contract with Inter Miami was worth an estimated $150 million at the time. It immediately began paying off, with Inter Miami winning its first trophy — the 2023 Leagues Cup — shortly after he arrived.
Last season, when he won the MLS MVP award for the first time, he did so while missing 15 of Inter Miami’s 34 regular-season matches because of injuries or commitments to Argentina’s national team. Even with those absences, Inter Miami won its first Supporters’ Shield by having MLS’ best regular-season record — then got upset in the first round of the playoffs.
The club has seen a massive rise in global popularity with Messi on the roster. His pink No. 10 jersey has been MLS’ highest seller since he joined the league, and he has added to his massive off-field business empire since coming to the U.S. — even starring in a Super Bowl ad last year.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
]]>The Quakes broke through with a pair of late goals to pull out a 2-1 win over Austin FC on Saturday. The other results they would have needed to claim the Western Conference’s final playoff seed on Major League Soccer’s “Decision Day,” however, didn’t go their way.
“We blew too many games this year, wasted too many points, and put ourselves in a position that made it difficult,” said coach Bruce Arena, who finished his first season in San Jose with a record of 11-15-8 and an 11th-place finish in the conference.
Still, an improvement from last year’s last-place finish that led to the hiring of the longtime MLS and U.S. Men’s National Team coach in January.
“From 2024, we basically doubled wins. We had six last year, 11 this year. We had 21 points last year, 41 this year. We scored 60 goals, 41 last year. That’s progress,” Arena said. “We made progress. That’s all I can say. So that part’s good, but I can easily count a half-a-dozen games we could have walked off with more points.”
Having lost four of five matches entering the night, San Jose needed to win and depended on three other outcomes. FC Dallas beat Vancouver and Real Salt Lake tied St. Louis, locking the Quakes out of the postseason despite getting the needed draw from Colorado against LAFC. They needed one loss from FC Dallas or Real Salt Lake.
The Earthquakes players watched from the field as their fate was sealed with the final seven minutes of the RSL-St. Louis match airing on the video board.
Niko Tsakiris, whose first career goal gave San Jose the lead in the 77th minute, described his day as “bittersweet.”
“Obviously we fell short of what we wanted,” said the 20-year-old Saratoga-born midfielder. “But as an individual, happy to get my first goal.”
For much of the match at PayPal Park, it didn’t appear that scoreboard watching would be a worthwhile activity.
The Quakes dominated possession and owned advantages in most statistical categories. They outshot Austin 10-2 and held possession for more than 60% of the game. But they missed their first eight shots on goal — and first 24 total attempts — before Josef Martinez headed their first goal past Austin keeper Brad Stuver in the 75th minute.
Austin FC attempted only one shot on goal in the first half, but the right-footer from Owen Wolff gave Austin a 1-0 lead in the 22nd minute.
Martinez’s 14th goal of the season tied the score at 1, and Tsakiris put them ahead 2-1 just 2 minutes later on a free kick reminiscent of the one he made in the U20 World Cup in Chile.
“On the sideline, I said, ‘Niko’s got to take this free kick,'” Arena said. “I saw the free kick he hit in the U20 tournament. Good for Niko, and hopefully he can be a guy competing to be a full-time player next year. So that’s encouraging.”
Whereas Tsakiris, a homegrown product, predated Arena’s arrival, Martinez, the team’s leading goal scorer, was one of 13 players brought in by the new coach to debut this season. The overhaul ignited the offensive attack, finishing fourth in MLS with 60 goals, but its defense left something to be desired.
Austin, Arena pointed out, scored 23 fewer goals this season but limited opponents to the fifth-lowest number in the league.
“We’re going home, and they’re in sixth place,” Arena said. “So figure that out.”
Part of the answer, Arena acknowledged, comes from coaching. When he arrived in January, he said, “in all honesty, we didn’t know our team. It took a large part of the year to sort some of that out.” The other piece is roster construction, which Arena indicated will continue this offseason.
Acknowledging the club’s payroll constraints and the up-in-the-air ownership situation following reports that John Fisher intends to sell the team, Arena said the Quakes need to surround players like Martinez and Christian Espinoza, one of the top scoring duos in the league, with more talent.
“We’re trying to build the organization into a winning organization,” Arena said. “We have a ways to go. We’ve improved facilities here. We have a new training field now, just completed. We have a new dining hall for the team. A team meeting room. So, we’re making progress. We’re trying to catch up with everyone in the league. …
“We’re not positioned to win the MLS Cup at the moment,” he continued. “But we can get better. You’ve got to improve the roster, to start.”
]]>“A good season for me is making the playoffs and at least winning a playoff game,” the Quakes’ coach said in a news conference Thursday.
The Quakes need to win and get help elsewhere in the Western Conference to keep alive their chance of meeting Arena’s criteria.
In addition to a win over sixth-place Austin FC, the Quakes, currently 11th in the conference standings, need two of the following three results in order to reach the Western Conference’s No. 9 seed and a playoff spot:
- Eighth-place FC Dallas loss at conference-leading Vancouver Whitecaps FC
- Real Salt Lake, tied for ninth, loss at 13th-place St. Louis City FC
- Colorado Rapids, tied for ninth, loss or draw vs. third-place Los Angeles FC
If all four results go the Quakes’ way, they would leap into the No. 8 spot and host the Western Conference wild-card match next Wednesday night. All four games Saturday kick off at 6 p.m. Pacific.
Captain Cristian Espinoza said the team hopes to take advantage of an “extra chance” to make the playoffs after Dallas’ and Salt Lake’s losses last weekend left the door open, but expectations must be higher.
“At this point of the season, all of us expect to be in the playoffs,” he said, even for a team that last won a playoff game in 2010, when San Jose made the West finals.
Arena and captain Cristian Espinoza said the team won’t be scoreboard watching, since their approach won’t change based on results elsewhere.
“We have to treat this like it’s a final, being able to control the emotions,” forward Chicho Arango said of the moment.
In addition to the playoff stakes, San Jose will be seeking to avenge their July 8 ouster from the U.S. Open Cup at PayPal Park at the hands of Austin FC. Espinoza suffered a gash on his leg that forced him from the match in the second half, and the Quakes lost on penalty kicks after taking leads in regulation and extra time.
“It’s such a different moment of the season,” Espinoza said comparing the finale to that July match. “The feelings about the injury, I don’t have anymore.”
Austin also beat the Quakes in a league match in late August in the Texas capital.
While climbing up from 2024’s last-place finish is an improvement, missing the playoffs would be a disappointment after the club brought in Arena as coach and added firepower last offseason. The Quakes signed Josef Martinez as a free agent and traded for Arango, also adding several former New England players with whom Arena was familiar.
The Quakes sit on 38 points and 10 wins entering Saturday after earning only 21 points last season under Luchi Gonzalez, who was fired halfway through the season, and interim coach Ian Russell.
“There were some improvements, but not good enough,” Arena said in assessing his first season. “We’ve been inconsistent. As we get better as a team, there will be more consistency and win more games and position our team better.”
]]>San Jose sits in 11th place in the West with 38 points entering the final week of the season. The top nine teams make the playoffs, with the Nos. 8 and 9 seeds facing each other in a single-elimination wild-card game.
The Quakes can find their way into that game with a win in their regular-season finale Saturday against Austin FC (6 p.m., Apple TV+) and some help elsewhere.
Dallas FC (41 points), Real Salt Lake (40 points) and the Colorado Rapids (40 points) occupy the three spots ahead of San Jose in the standings. If the Quakes win and any of those three teams lose, San Jose will leap that team in the standings after accounting for tiebreakers. They must climb over two of them to earn a spot in that wild-card match. A Colorado draw would also allow San Jose to leapfrog the Rapids.
Salt Lake and Dallas entered this weekend with a chance to separate themselves but lost to Seattle and the LA Galaxy, respectively. Colorado, like the Quakes, was off this weekend.
As for the difficulty of their matchups, the Quakes face Austin, the No. 6 seed, while Dallas plays West-leading Vancouver Whitecaps FC, Salt Lake visits 13th-place St. Louis and Colorado hosts No. 3 seed LAFC.
All four games will kick off at 6 p.m. Pacific on Saturday as the Quakes seek to leap into a playoff spot in Bruce Arena’s first season in charge.
]]>Sebastian Berhalter, the son of former U.S. men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter, had two goals and an assist to spark Vancouver’s win at BC Place.
San Jose (10-15-8) fell out of playoff position with the loss and still has 38 points, good for just 11th place in the Western Conference, where nine teams will participate in the postseason. Eighth-place Dallas has 41 points, while Real Salt Lake and Colorado have 40 points apiece.
San Jose will need a victory over Austin FC in its final regular season game on Saturday, Oct. 18 at PayPal Park. Plus, the Earthquakes will need plenty of help from Real Salt Lake’s two remaining opponents (Seattle and St. Louis) as well as Colorado’s final opponent (LAFC) on Oct. 18.
The Quakes’ chances of qualifying for the postseason may come down to neither Salt Lake nor Colorado earning another point.
“We’re going to do everything we can to try to win in the last game of the season. We don’t have control of things,” said San Jose coach Bruce Arena. “Certainly, a point today would have put us in a better position, but we failed there. But all we can do is, in the last game of the season, go out and try to get three points and see where we stand when all the dust clears.
“Hopefully, it’s positive.”
Vancouver goalie Ralph Priso made a goal-line block of a header by Josef Martínez in the seventh minute to deny San Jose an early lead.
Then the Whitecaps’ offense took over and San Jose couldn’t recover.
Vancouver’s Rayan Elloumi and Thomas Müller each scored a goal to put the Whitecaps up 2-0, Berhalter then blasted a rising shot from 30 yards out that slipped inside the post to make it 3-0 in the 74th.
San Jose’s lone goal came from Beau Leroux, who made it 3-1 in the 89th with a shot from outside the area that deflected off Vancouver’s Giuseppe Bovalina into the net. It was Leroux’s fifth goal of the season.
Any intrigue Leroux’s goal may have added was quickly stamped out once Berhalter scored his second goal in the second minute of stoppage time.
Leroux quickly turned his attention to another goal.
“We just need to finish out the season strong. One last game of the regular season. We all need to be together,” Leroux said.
Vancouver (17-6-9) now has 60 points and is tied with San Diego atop the Western Conference, two points ahead of third-place Minnesota.
HONORING THEIR FOUNDER
The Earthquakes wore wear black armbands in Vancouver for Sunday’s game against the Whitecaps in honor of Milan Mandarić, the club’s founder who died Saturday at the age of 87.
Mandarić started the team in 1974 as part of the North American Soccer League. He sold the club in 1977, but later bought back in and helped bring Manchester United legend George Best to the Quakes in 1980.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of our founder and longtime owner Milan Mandaric,” the Quakes said in a statement. “We are forever indebted to Milan for bringing professional soccer to San Jose and building the Earthquakes into one of the longest running clubs in the United States.”
In the late 1990s, the Serbian technology businessman became owner and chairman of English club Portsmouth, later getting involved with Leicester City and Sheffield Wednesday.
Mandaric died in Belgrade, Serbia after a brief illness.
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