SDFC come up short at home, fall 3-2 to Earthquakes

SAN DIEGO — San Diego FC’s Snapdragon Stadium winning streak snapped at five, downed 3-2 by in-state rivals, San Jose Earthquakes, on a warm Wednesday night.

SDFC were back home from their brief single-match Florida road trip, unable to collect points in their visit to Inter&Co Stadium, falling 1-0 to the Eastern Conference’s Orlando City SC.

After falling 3-0 in their first meeting of the season back on April 4 at PayPal Park, SDFC looked to split the regular-season series on Wednesday night, in search of their sixth straight win at Snapdragon Stadium. 

As for this match, the Earthquakes were quick to capitalize on the counter, getting on the scoresheet within three minutes of the opening whistle. 

An all-SDFC start was flipped with a single pass, finding Earthquakes’ midfielder Niko Tsakiris unmarked and with space in the attacking half. All that was left was a cutback onto his left foot as he left off a curling low shot from outside the box, into the bottom left side netting for the 1-0 score.

SDFC’s nightmare start continued at the six-minute mark, with an Earthquake long ball turning into a defensive half turnover for SDFC, leaving CJ dos Santos forced to make a play on the ball with forward Preston Judd going down inside the box, quickly given as a penalty. 

After an initial red card from referee Alexis Da Silva to CJ dos Santos following the foul on Judd, SDFC caught a break with the offence being downgraded to a yellow card as SDFC remained at 11 men on the field.

CJ dos Santos immediately came to SDFC’s rescue, diving to his bottom left of the goal to deny Tsakiris from the spot in the eighth minute to keep the game at 1-0. 

But the relentless counterattacks continued from San Jose, with Judd played in behind as he rounded CJ dos Santos and scored into the uncontested net for the 2-0 score in the 12-minute. 

San Jose’s Niko Tsakiris and Ousseni Bouda connected in the 35-minute to make it three goals in the first half, with Tsakiris delivering a distant outside-the-foot pass into the box for Bouda’s well-timed lofted header over CJ dos Santos to make it 3-0. 

Anders Dreyer gave SDFC a spark of life right before the halftime break, driving in a half-volleyed strike near the penalty spot off the left post and into the net.

The 3-1 score marked Dreyer’s ninth goal of the 2026 MLS season.

CJ dos Santos wouldn’t escape a red card for the second time in the game, receiving his second yellow of the match in the 80-minute after an outside-the-box challenge on Bouda.

Second-choice goalkeeper Duran Ferree was called upon to take over between the sticks for the remainder of the game.

Very late into the match, SDFC earned a penalty of their own in the 88-minute off a delivered Anders Dreyer set piece, ending in newly signed forward Cédric Bakambu being pushed from behind near the goal area by Earthquakes’ Max Floriani, who saw his second yellow card of the game after a VAR review.

On his Chrome & Azul debut, Cédric Bakambu buried his attempt from the spot into the right side of the goal to record his first goal for the club, cutting the San Jose lead to a single score. 

But time just ran out for the home side, with the full-time whistle blowing at that 3-2 scoreline for the San Jose Earthquakes' regular-season sweep, ending SDFC’s five-match Snapdragon Stadium winning streak as the Chrome & Azul drop back-to-back MLS matches. 

Following the match, SDFC head coach Mikey Varas addressed the team’s recent struggles and performances at the postgame press conference.

“We played far away from our best. I just want to apologize to the fans, to Frontera and to everybody who follows the club because it's really not a good performance.”

“We're at the business end of things where we need to give much stronger performances than that. That's 100% on me, I hold my hand up.”

“I'm gonna do everything possible to help these guys set them up for success.”

SDFC are back in action at the weekend, hosting Eastern Conference side Philadelphia Union on Sunday night as the two clubs meet for the first-ever time. Kickoff at Snapdragon Stadium is set for 6 p.m.