St. Louis City SC has never lost or tied in six matches against the San Jose Earthquakes in their four-year existence.

If current form holds for both teams, that streak figures to end Saturday night when San Jose invades Energizer Park in a fixture of Western Conference squads.

After routing Austin 5-1 on Wednesday in northern California, the Earthquakes (8-1-0, 24 points) boast the top record in MLS and are tied with Vancouver for the best goal differential at plus-18.

Meanwhile, St. Louis (1-4-3, 6 points) is coming off a 4-1 loss last Saturday at Seattle that extended its MLS winless streak to three matches (0-1-2). Not only is it once again struggling to score goals — it has seven in eight matches — but its defense has conceded at least once in every match.

Midfielder Marcel Hartel didn’t have a real answer when asked why the team continues to struggle to finish its chances.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “We speak about it after every game — analyze the goals we concede, the goals we score. We defend good as a collective. … We have to score more goals. We have good opportunities in every game.”

The return of Eduard Lowen could help St. Louis unlock its offense. He played briefly at the end in Seattle and scored in stoppage time.

As for San Jose, its only problem might be overcheering. The team is scoring nearly three goals per match and its defense, an issue last year when it missed the playoffs, is maintaining its shape beautifully.

It’s adding up to another magical second season for coach Bruce Arena. If the Earthquakes earn the Supporters’ Shield, it would be the fourth team Arena has coached that has earned that honor in his second year with that squad.

“We won nine games last year. We have eight now,” he said. “I attribute it simply that they grind it out, they work hard every day and they like each other.”

Oussemi Bouda and Preston Judd each have five goals, while four other players have scored two goals each.

–Field Level Media

The Portland Timbers will try to avoid focusing on vengeance for last season’s playoff exit on Saturday night when they visit a San Diego FC squad enduring the roughest stretch of the club’s two-year existence.

The Timbers (2-5-1, 7 points) were one of eight clubs that didn’t play on Wednesday.

That gave manager Phil Neville’s side a week to prepare for a San Diego side that eliminated Portland from the playoffs last season in a tightly contested first-round series.

But with Portland currently five points beneath the playoff line in the Western Conference, he hopes his squad can leave the emotion of that defeat behind.

“I don’t do revenge,” Neville said. “I think that’s very short-sighted. I think if you get clouded with that kind of emotion, you don’t have clarity of mind. … I think I see it as an opportunity rather than revenge, and I’m sure they do as well.”

Kristoffer Velde leads the Timbers with three goals, including the first in the Timbers’ 2-1 victory over LAFC two weekends ago.

Eight other players have each scored once for a side that has lost its first four away fixtures, including 2-0 at Minnesota last weekend.

San Diego (3-4-2, 11 points) enters having lost four straight in the league, one game more than its longest losing stretch in the club’s inaugural 2025 season.

Amid that dynamic, SDFC manager Mikey Varas agrees there won’t be much carryover from last postseason.

“Every season, the teams are a little bit different, so it’s all a fresh start,” Varas said. “The team is really hungry to continue making steps forward and get back to our best.”

Three of those four defeats have come on the road, with San Diego failing to score in two of those away fixtures.

San Diego has also seen a player sent off in four of its last five matches. Striker Amahl Pellegrino was dismissed in the 79th minute of Wednesday’s 1-0 loss at the Houston Dynamo and will serve his one-match suspension Saturday.

Marcus Ingvartsen leads San Diego with five league goals and Anders Dreyer has four.

–Field Level Media

Two months into the regular season, Nashville SC built the best record in the Eastern Conference while juggling matches in the CONCACAF Champions Cup.

Now, Nashville will have had a rare full week’s rest when it hosts Charlotte FC on Saturday.

Nashville SC (6-1-1, 19 points) had Wednesday off while much of the league was in action. They also didn’t have a midweek Champions Cup fixture for a change: Nashville beat Club America on aggregate last week and will tussle with Mexican power Tigres UANL in the semifinals beginning April 28.

“I think when you actually get a full week of training, you can really focus on yourself for periods of time,” Nashville head coach B.J. Callaghan said. “Obviously when you’re playing every two days, a lot of it has to do with recovery and thinking about what you’re going to do for the opponent.”

Recovery helps, too. Callaghan said Nashville’s top scorer Sam Surridge, who hasn’t played since April 11 due to a hamstring injury, is back at practice and available for selection. He’s tied with Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi for third in the league with seven goals.

That April 11 match was the first meeting between regional rivals Nashville and Charlotte this year. Edvard Tagseth and Patrick Yazbek scored in either half to lift Nashville to a 2-1 road win.

“We didn’t play well in the first half against Nashville. We never got the ball back,” Charlotte coach Dean Smith said this week. “I didn’t think we pressed as well as we could’ve, with the intensity that we needed to. We certainly need to go and do that.”

Charlotte FC (4-3-2, 14 points) have dropped two of three in league play, most recently taking a 4-1 road loss to Orlando City on Wednesday. That was Charlotte’s highest yield of the season, yet Smith insisted his team played better than in its previous match, a 2-1 win over New York City FC. Defender Morrison Agyemang, 21, had his first career goal.

Smith said defender and U.S. men’s national team captain Tim Ream (adductor) will miss one more match but should be ready for May 2 at the New England Revolution.

“I think they’ve had to make a few adjustments with Tim Ream out,” Callaghan said, “but I think what you always get from Charlotte is a really well-coached team, organized in a lot of phases and again, that highlights a lot of — I would say, some of their individual attacking qualities really are able to come out from that.”

–Field Level Media

After letting a second-half lead slip away in their last outing, the host Chicago Fire renew their rivalry with fellow Midwestern foe Sporting Kansas City on Saturday night.

While the Fire (4-2-2, 14 points) are unbeaten in their last five matches across all competitions (4-0-1), they blew a 3-1 second-half lead against FC Cincinnati on April 18. Evander’s penalty kick in the 79th minute and Dje D’Avilla’s own goal seven minutes later engineered Cincinnati’s 3-3 come-from-behind draw.

“For us, there were a couple things we did wrong, and a lot of that is correctable. We looked at the video and worked on it. It’s something we want to stay focused,” Fire head coach Gregg Berhalter said.

Though Kansas City (1-6-1, 4 points) is currently at the bottom of the Western Conference, that’s “a little bit misleading,” Berhalter said.

“They have played better at times than the results show, and they pose some problems. For us, it’s being really focused on what we’re trying to do, being aggressive and trying to set the team up for success,” he said.

Sporting KC have dropped five in a row across all competitions, including a 3-0 upset loss to USL Championship side Colorado Springs Switchbacks in the U.S. Open Cup Round of 32 on April 14. They have been outscored 16-3 in that span.

It’s far from what SKC head coach Raphael Wicky anticipated, ahead of his first meeting against the club he helmed for just shy of two seasons in 2020 and 2021.

“When you look at all these games, there’s always moments where we’re good, that we’re in the game, and then very quickly we make a mistake or we concede, and then we’re quickly out of the game,” Wicky said. “So that is always frustrating, but that is where I think we have to keep going.”

Chicago forward Jonathan Bamba (personal matters) will remain out against Kansas City, per Berhalter. Defender Leonardo Barroso (lower-body injury) is out as well.

Wicky was 12-26-14 in 52 matches as the Fire’s head coach.

Hugo Cuypers has netted half of Chicago’s 12 goals. Dejan Joveljic has four of SKC’s seven to lead the visitors.

–Field Level Media

Austin FC hope that the added intensity of a rivalry match at home with the Houston Dynamo changes their recent winless swoon when the sides square off Saturday in the latest edition of the quest for Copa Tejas.

The Dynamo head northwest to the Texan capital on the heels of a 1-0 home win over San Diego FC on Wednesday. Ibrahim Aliyu’s goal in the 35th minute was the difference-maker and keeper Jonathan Bond had to save just one shot to secure a second consecutive shutout for Houston (4-4-0, 12 points).

The shutout streak comes after Houston surrendered six goals in a shellacking at Colorado on April 11.

“After that loss, there was a refocus on the defensive side, on how we look off the ball and how we look after each other,” Dynamo coach Ben Olsen said after Wednesday’s victory. “We could have made things easier for ourselves with a second goal — we have to do a better job of understanding when it’s time to go against a team that leaves itself exposed.”

Dynamo starting striker Ondrej Lingr, who assisted on Aliyu’s goal on Wednesday, was shown a red card late in that match and will not be available versus Austin.

Austin travels home from the Bay Area after a 5-1 walloping Wednesday at the hands of San Jose. That match was the third on the road in nine days for the Verde (1-4-4, 7 points), with Joseph Rosales scoring Austin’s lone goal while goalkeeper Brad Stuver saved 11 of the 16 shots with which he was peppered before the floodgates opened.

Austin is winless in its last seven MLS matches (0-4-3) and has allowed 12 goals in its past four contests. The Verde, who scored a Western Conference-low 37 goals last season, have been outscored 19-12 over their nine matches this year.

The Verde are still looking for a balance between pressing to score and limiting their opponents’ opportunities. San Jose had a 37-6 edge in shots on Wednesday while defeating Austin.

“We were not a team that scored many goals (last season),” Austin coach Nico Estevez explained. “This is something we talked about in the offseason. And it’s true that sometimes when you focus so much on improving one thing, you can get worse in other aspects.”

The Verde have historically been dominant at home in MLS matches against Houston, forging a 5-1-1 mark the seven times the sides have clashed at Q2 Stadium.

–Field Level Media

Lionel Messi and Inter Miami will seek a third consecutive victory, and the first in their new home, when they host the New England Revolution on Saturday night.

After settling for 2-2 draws against Austin FC and the New York Red Bulls in the first two matches played at Nu Stadium, manager Javier Mascherano suddenly resigned and sporting director Guillermo Hoyos took over on an interim basis.

The Herons (5-1-3, 18 points) then hit the road for a 3-2 win at Colorado last Saturday night and 2-0 victory at Salt Lake on Wednesday evening.

Messi scored his team-leading sixth and seventh goals against Colorado. Against Salt Lake, late goals from Rodrigo De Paul and Luis Suarez made the difference.

And overall, the trip provided a team-bonding opportunity following an unexpected change.

“We spent, those two matches, almost a full week together,” Hoyos said in Spanish. “And during that time we really got to know each other on a much deeper level, especially with those we didn’t know before. But it was truly a pleasure because there was a lot of laughter. The players were very happy.”

Meanwhile, a New England side with modest expectations this season has quietly assembled a four-match league winning streak, including an impressive 2-1 victory at Atlanta United on Wednesday night.

William Sands and Peyton Miller scored in the 73rd and 78th minutes, respectively, as the Revolution (5-3-0, 15 points) rallied to a late win. And American World Cup hopeful Matt Turner made eight saves to raise his save percentage to 77.1%.

The Revolution have lost all four of their matches with the Herons since Messi’s arrival to MLS. But while first-year coach Marko Mitrovic respects the challenge the South Floridians present, he believes his side can exploit some of their deficiencies.

“I don’t want to say we can give them resistance,” Mitrovic said. “We’re not there to give resistance to players, to any team. We’re there to play our game, to try be on our best (level).”

–Field Level Media