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Nashville SC can clinch the Supporters’ Shield with a road win against a San Jose Earthquakes side that hasn’t lost since late August when the teams meet Saturday night.

Nashville (20-3-6, 66 points) could wrap up the honor before kickoff if Vancouver and Miami both fail to win their matches earlier Saturday. There may be a temptation to ease up, given the club’s near-certainty of finishing with the best regular-season record and earning its second major trophy.

But there are no signs of that, as the Coyotes also chase Inter Miami’s 74-point MLS record set in 2024. Nashville has won its last four matches by a combined 13-1 margin.

At home Wednesday night, Hany Mukhtar, Sam Surridge and Andy Najar all scored in the opening half-hour of a 4-0 win over Sporting Kansas City.

“I think guys demand out of each other — to not just play, but to train and to compete and to compare — everything they do they hold each other to a high standard,” Nashville coach B.J. Callaghan said. “And I think tonight you saw that in terms of the way we went about it from the opening whistle.”

Surridge and Mukhtar have combined for 32 goals, while former Quakes winger Cristian Espinoza is one off the MLS lead with 14 assists.

But Espinoza’s former club presents a formidable challenge, riding an eight-match unbeaten streak in its second season under Bruce Arena, the winningest coach in MLS history.

San Jose (13-8-8, 47 points) is 3-0-5 in its last eight matches after Jack Jasinski’s late second-half stoppage-time equalizer secured a 1-1 draw at Real Salt Lake on Wednesday night.

“You could say we kind of stole a point at the end of that game,” Arena said. “But having said that, we’ve played now a bunch of games on the road over the last month, games in venues that are difficult … and to get results in those games is big.”

The Quakes entered the weekend in fourth place in the Western Conference and five points behind West leader Vancouver, with three of their last five matches at home. A win would clinch their first playoff berth since 2023.

Preston Judd has scored four of his team-leading 15 goals in his last five matches, though his workload could be under consideration after he played the full 90 minutes in each of San Jose’s previous two games.

–Field Level Media

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