Minnesota United dismantled San Jose Earthquakes 5:1 in Major League Soccer's regular season on Saturday. The visitors seized control early and never looked back, despite the hosts' 58 per cent possession. T. Werner opened the scoring with a penalty in the fourth minute before J. Pereyra doubled the advantage ten minutes later.
San Jose should have responded when K. Yeboah struck twice in quick succession—fortieth and forty-fourth minutes—but the visitors were already three up. M. Caldeira pulled one back for the hosts in the sixty-fifth minute, only for M. Gonzalez to restore the five-goal cushion just before the hour mark. The result left San Jose trailing 1:5 with the game far from dead.
Substitutions told their own story. San Jose made five changes between the forty-sixth and seventy-eighth minutes, bringing on J. A. Gonzalez Mendoza, N. Tsakiris, O. Bouda, Vitor Costa and others. Minnesota matched the pace with four changes of their own, including two for goalscorer K. Yeboah in the eighty-second and eighty-third minutes. T. Werner came off in the fifty-seventh after his penalty contribution.
The statistics told of a mismatch. San Jose registered 92 attacks and 496 passes but created only four big chances compared to Minnesota's six. The visitors were more clinical with 11 shots—seven on target—against eight off target, while the hosts managed six shots on target from nine attempts. Expected goals favoured the visitors at 2.0 to 1.84.
San Jose's recent form offered little comfort. They had lost their last two league matches—0:1 at LA Galaxy and 1:3 against St. Louis City—and were now looking at a third defeat in four games. Minnesota, meanwhile, ended a run that included a 3:1 victory over Mazatlan and a 0:0 draw with Tigres UANL.
The result keeps San Jose fourth on 34 points from 22 games while Minnesota remain ninth with 29 points. The gap between them widened, and the visitors now hold a five-point advantage over their hosts with three matches remaining in the regular season.