Niko Tsakiris Scores Twice as San Jose Earthquakes Beat 10-Man San Diego FC 3-0

Niko Tsakiris is 20 years old, and on Saturday night he put his name in the same sentence as Landon Donovan.

The 20-year-old scored twice in the first 34 minutes, Preston Judd added a third before halftime, and the San Jose Earthquakes beat 10-man San Diego FC 3-0 at PayPal Park. Manu Duah's VAR-assisted red card turned a contest into a procession, and the Quakes' miserly defense did the rest. San Jose are now 5-0-1, San Diego have their first loss of the season, and the young El Camino Rivalry just got a lot spicier.

Tsakiris Sets the Tone

San Diego came in unbeaten and walked into a buzzsaw. Judd forced Duran Ferree into a save in the fifth minute, and Ousséni Bouda headed a Benji Kikanovic cross just wide moments later. San Diego's best moment of the entire night came in the seventh minute, when Marcus Ingvartsen got a shot away from the middle of the box and Daniel saved it in the bottom right corner. It would be the visitors' only shot on target.

In the 13th minute, San Jose struck. Per the San Diego recap, Judd picked up the ball after a Lewis Morgan pass went astray and carried it forward, then teed up Tsakiris on the left side of the box. The young attacking midfielder shifted onto his left foot and lashed the ball into the top left corner. Even his coach was baffled.

"That first goal, I don't know how he possibly scored that goal," Earthquakes head coach Bruce Arena said. "It's probably something I taught him in training I can't remember."

The Red Card That Broke It Open

The match turned in the 28th minute. Judd went down under a challenge from Duah in the box, and the referee pointed to the spot. After a VAR review, Duah's card was upgraded to red in the 32nd minute, leaving San Diego with 10 men for nearly an hour of regulation.

Tsakiris stepped up two minutes later. San Diego said Ferree guessed the right way and got a hand to the left-footed penalty, but the ball still found the top right corner for a 2-0 lead.

San Diego head coach Mikey Varas did not hide from it. "No silver linings, we started the game really poorly with individual errors that lead to two goals conceded and a red card," he said. "At the end of the day, I don't agree with the referee's call, but we also put ourselves in this situation."

Arena saw the same moment as the hinge of the night. "Obviously the red card was a big play in the game, because I believe that was our second goal, right off the red card," he said.

San Jose kept coming. Beau Leroux missed narrowly in the 35th minute, Ferree stopped Tsakiris from close range a minute later, and San Diego sent on Wilson Eisner for David Vazquez in the 40th. It barely helped. Three minutes into first-half stoppage time, Leroux broke down the left on a fast break and crossed for Judd, who beat his marker and finished from the middle of the box to make it 3-0.

A Second Half of Shooting Practice

The second half was a formality, but San Jose treated it like a shooting drill. Tsakiris tested Ferree twice more, Bouda forced another save, and Dave Romney, on for the injured Jamar Ricketts, sent two headers toward goal off Tsakiris deliveries. Ferree finished with seven saves and kept the scoreline from getting truly ugly.

Who Ran the Show

Niko Tsakiris. Five shots, five on target, two goals, and the Earthquakes' man of the match. The club said his eight key passes pushed his league-leading total to 24. At 20 years and 289 days, he became the second-youngest player in Quakes history to score twice in a match, behind only Landon Donovan, per the club.

"The career that he had and the player that he was, it's special to be with him in that same category," Tsakiris said of Donovan. "I still have a lot of work to do, and it's a great first step for me."

Preston Judd. A goal, an assist, a drawn penalty and five shots. He was involved in all three goals, which is the striker equivalent of a perfect game.

Daniel. Only one save required, but it came at the one moment San Diego threatened, and it locked in his fifth clean sheet of the season and 16th of his MLS career, per the club.

Duran Ferree. Seven saves in a losing cause. Without him, this gets a lot uglier.

Stats That Matter

• Shots: San Jose 24, San Diego 4.
• Shots on target: San Jose 10, San Diego 1.
• Possession: San Diego held 60.2 percent, which bought them exactly nothing.
• Saves: Ferree 7, Daniel 1.
• Passes: San Diego attempted 563 to San Jose's 364.

What It Means

San Jose sit at 5-0-1 with 15 points, and the club said the win left them level on points with second-place Vancouver and one point off the top of the Western Conference. The Quakes have five clean sheets in six matches and have conceded once all season, a new club record for fewest goals conceded over a six-game period in MLS play, according to the Earthquakes. The club also said it was the first time San Jose had stood at five wins and one loss, dating back to its 1974 founding in the NASL, and that Arena's 278th regular-season win is an MLS record.

San Diego drop to 3-2-1 with 11 points, seventh in the West per the Earthquakes' game notes. The loss was their first of the MLS season, snapped a 12-match regular-season road unbeaten run dating back to last year, and left them without a win in three straight league matches. It was also their fifth red card in five matches across all competitions, per the club.

San Jose visit Sporting Kansas City next Saturday. San Diego return home to host Minnesota United the same day.

The Bottom Line

Arena refused to get carried away. "We may lose our next 28 games, so we have to put everything in the right perspective," he said.

That would be quite the plot twist. With a 20-year-old playmaker following Donovan's footsteps and a defense that treats every clean sheet like a rent payment, the Quakes look less like an early-season surprise and more like a problem the rest of the West has to solve.

Stats from ESPN's match data. Postgame quotes as reported by the San Jose Earthquakes (sjearthquakes.com) and San Diego FC (sandiegofc.com).