The San Jose Earthquakes are back on Wednesday, and the wait ends with a home match against Orlando City SC at PayPal Park after two months away from MLS action because of the FIFA World Cup™ break. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. PT, a restart that gives San Jose its first league game in a stretch that began with the pause in June.
That is why Orlando City Vs San Jose is drawing attention now: San Jose comes in with 32 points and tied atop the Western Conference with Vancouver Whitecaps FC, while Orlando arrives from the other end of the table in the Eastern Conference. The match will air globally on Apple TV in English and Spanish, with radio coverage on KSFO 810 AM in English and La Kaliente 1370 AM in Spanish.
San Jose closed the first half of the season with a 3-1 win over the Portland Timbers on May 23, and the result was built on Preston Judd’s burst. He scored twice inside 12 minutes and finished that match with 11 goals for the season, while Daniel Munie added a goal in the 24th minute for his third of the campaign. The Earthquakes also earned their first win at Providence Park in the MLS era that night, a sign of how far the group had come before the break.
Bruce Arena said the pause came at the right time. He said the team needed and deserved a break, and he pointed to the injuries that had piled up before the restart. He also said the club should be healthier and have several players back by the end of July, which leaves the lineup against Orlando open to some movement even after the roster changes made during the layoff.
Those changes were not minor. San Jose signed new contracts with Benji Kikanović, Jamar Ricketts and Reid Roberts, traded starting goalkeeper Daniel to FC Dallas for up to $1 million in General Allocation Money, and brought in Angus Gunn and Luka Jovanović. Gunn had previously played for Nottingham Forest FC, while Jovanović arrived as the reigning Australian A-League Golden Boot co-winner. The practical question now is how much of that reshaped group Arena trusts in a match that matters immediately.
Orlando does not make that decision easy. It entered the game after conceding six goals in its most recent outing, a road loss to FC Cincinnati, and sits 12th in the Eastern Conference with a 4-9-2 record under Interim Head Coach Martín Perelman. Martín Ojeda has carried much of the attacking load with 11 goals and one assist in 2026, including a brace and his fourth multi-goal performance of the season against FC Cincinnati, while Iván Angulo and Tiago have combined for 10 assists. San Jose is also looking for its first home win against Orlando City since Aug. 31, 2019, and the matchup carries an added layer because Wednesday’s meeting is the first MLS one between Timo Werner and Antoine Griezmann, even though the two have faced each other four times for Germany and France on the international stage.
For San Jose, the night is less about rediscovering form than proving the break did not slow it down. A team that finished the first half with momentum now has to turn roster tweaks and returning health into a result immediately, because the league race does not wait for the reset to feel complete.
