What is the best way for the Los Angeles Football Club to move past Wednesday’s emotional loss to Inter Miami in the CONCACAF Champions Cup quarterfinals?

“By playing the next match,” head coach Steve Cherundolo suggested inside the press room at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. Bowing out of the continental tournament by conceding three goals over the last hour of the match, losing the two-leg series 3-2 on aggregate, LAFC will not have to wait long to turn the page.

Tonight at BMO Stadium, the Black & Gold host Bruce Arena and the San Jose Earthquakes, as Cherundolo and his players shift their focus to building momentum in the MLS standings.

“Obviously it’s sad we didn’t get the result that we were looking for,” defender Eddie Segura said Wednesday. “Some little details in that game could have gone differently, but we have to keep our heads up and work on those details and keep moving forward in the season.”

For Cherundolo, “the beauty of playing in multiple competitions” means forgiving performances that didn’t go their way and choosing not to analyze results like Wednesday’s down to the last play of the game.

“I think the emotions are a part of it,” he said, “but these are professionals and will deal with that in the right way.”

Pending the outcome of an upcoming ruling regarding a FIFA Club World Cup playoff match against Mexico’s Club América, LAFC won’t need to concern itself with anything outside of MLS until the Leagues Cup begins July 29. Through seven MLS matches, LAFC (3-4-0, 9 points) ranks ninth in the Western Conference, one spot below the Earthquakes (3-3-1, 10 points), who have shown plenty of life following Arena’s arrival.

Meanwhile, LAFC has lost four of its last five league games, including its previous two in San Diego and Houston. Struggling to accrue points while working through the midweek demands of CONCACAF Champions Cup play, this weekend’s affair at home closes a busy stretch of five matches in 15 days.

“We will be ready Saturday,” Cherundolo promised. “We’ll have a team on the field at BMO ready to win a match. I think that’s certainly our objective. We get a little breather after that, but I think it’s now clear for us we need to start focusing on MLS and climbing back up that table.”

Taking on San Jose, LAFC reunites with several familiar faces, starting with Arena — the winningest head coach in U.S. men’s national team history — who utilized Cherundolo at fullback 38 times before being dismissed after the U.S. finished last in its group at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

Regarded as a fierce competitor and motivator, Arena is in his 20th season leading teams at the domestic club level. Stints with the New England Revolution, the Galaxy, New York Red Bulls and D.C. United have produced five MLS Cup titles and four Supporters’ Shields.

Arena quickly reshaped the Earthquakes, signing 13 players, including ex-LAFC regulars Chicho Arango and Mark-Anthony Kaye, to help a franchise that suffered through the fifth-worst single-season winning percentage in MLS history last year. Playing alongside Arango in the attack is Venezuelan striker Josef Martinez, whose league-best seventh career MLS hat trick came last weekend during a 6-1 win against D.C. that pushed the Earthquakes to a conference-leading 15 goals, seven more than LAFC.

Arango and Martinez have four goals each, and Earthquakes captain Cristian Espinoza assisted a league-leading five times, matching LAFC’s total as a team.