Tag: Austin FC

This MLS playoff race is an absolute mess

Put on your boots, because we’re about to wade into a mess

The race for the MLS playoffs is promising that Decision Day will be as bonkers as it ever has been.

The final day of the regular season is less than a month away, with 28 of the league’s 29 teams set for two breathless rounds of simultaneous kickoffs, one for each conference (sorry D.C. United, you’re just going to have to follow along at home).

There’s an old MLS truism that a team just needs to stay in touch until late August or so, and that if said team can start to heat up around Labor Day, you’re looking at a major threat coming from what on paper is a low playoff seed. Plenty of teams with multiple MLS Cups in their trophy case have at least one season where they followed this plan to a tee.

However, in 2023 it’s not so much about getting hot at the right time as simply ending up next to an empty seat during a poorly-played game of musical chairs. Seven teams have clinched their playoff berths already, and two more are simply abysmal.

That leaves 20 teams vying for 11 postseason spots in what is an extraordinarily forgiving set-up. The problem is that almost none of this group seems able to get a solid hold on their invite to the big dance.

Put on your boots, because we’re about to wade into a mess:

Jesus Ferreira is the troll king of Texas after late FC Dallas winner

Ferreira might be the least popular person in Austin

Jesús Ferreira understands the stuff rivalries are made of.

The USMNT forward provided both a late winner and some heavy-duty trolling in FC Dallas’ 1-0 victory at Austin FC Saturday night.

Dallas had to work hard to break down their hosts, who spent the final 36 minutes playing with 10 after Rodney Redes was sent off in the 54th minute. Once the moment arrived, though, it more or less had to be Ferreira, who extended his team lead with a sixth goal on the season.

Tsiki Ntsabeleng’s inch-perfect through ball broke the Verde’s resolve in the 89th minute, with Ferreira knifing between the center backs to produce a one-touch finish past the onrushing Brad Stuver.

Ferreira then made it crystal clear who had done Austin in, taking off his jersey and holding it up with the “Ferreira No. 10” side facing the home supporters for a solid 20 seconds.

Ferreira kept the celebration going afterward, flashing a peace sign and then putting his fingers in his ears as he walked off towards an inevitable booking from referee Ismail Elfath.

Austin fans probably didn’t need the reminder. For one thing, the goal had just happened. More importantly though, no one has scored more goals against Austin than Ferreira, who now has five in seven meetings with Dallas’ in-state rival.

Unhappy Austin fans tossed a couple empty beer cups out onto the field, but all that succeeded in doing was add another opportunity for Dallas to show them up. Nkosi Tafari spotted the last of the cups to hit the pitch, sauntered over, and took a mock swig before heading back to his position.

The outcome also maintained the trend for both teams. Dallas kept pace in the Western Conference, sitting in fourth place on 18 points after the win. Austin, meanwhile, is a disappointing 13th with just 10 points, a troubling situation for a team that expected to compete for silverware this season.

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Violette AC, with no league to play in, bounces Austin FC in historic CCL upset

History for Violette, and infamy for Austin

Remember the name Violette AC.

The Haitian club posted arguably the single greatest upset in CONCACAF Champions League history, overcoming some massive disadvantages and an excellent opponent in Austin FC to advance to the tournament’s quarterfinals 3-2 on aggregate.

Violette became the first Caribbean-based team to eliminate an MLS side since Trinidad and Tobago club W Connection got past the New York Red Bulls in 2009’s preliminary round.

More notably, Violette’s advancement came amid some astoundingly difficult circumstances. The Haitian side had gone 290 days without a competitive game due to political unrest preventing their domestic league from being played, yet beat Austin 3-0 at a neutral venue in the Dominican Republic last week.

Visa problems restricted numerous Violette players and staff from entering the United States for the second leg. Hudson River Blue reported that the club signed defender Mardoché Samuel Pompée and winger Maudwindo Germain from NPSL club FC Motown —  both former Violette players — to stock their roster. In the end, the Haitian champions had 14 total players (and only one goalkeeper) in uniform; Pompée was reportedly not cleared in time to be in uniform, while Germain started on the right wing.

Austin, fielding 2022 MLS MVP candidate Sebastián Driussi after resting him in the first leg, piled the pressure on Violette from the start. Saves from goalkeeper Paul Robert Décius, and some narrow misses from Gyasi Zardes and Owen Wolff kept the game scoreless.

Austin’s chances seemed limitless, as they produced 18 shot attempts in the first 45 minutes. Driussi thought he had a crucial 25th minute opener, but after a lengthy VAR check, the goal was called back after Ethan Finlay was seen to handle the ball in the build-up. The star attacking midfielder would then be denied by an incredible save from Décius as the Verde kept lobbing crosses into the goalmouth from promising spots.

Austin finally changed things up with an attack through the middle, but the outcome was similar: Zardes slipped a shot past Décius in first-half stoppage time, only for an offside flag to deny him the opener.

The breakthrough finally arrived in the 51st minute, as Driussi managed to at last solve Décius. It was yet another in the bombardment of crosses, with Emiliano Rigoni picking out an open Driussi for a thunderous volley from 11 yards.

Even that goal wouldn’t come completely cleanly, as a clash over the ball after it had bounced out of the back of the net saw Driussi kicked, a brief scuffle between the teams, and a VAR check all come and go before play finally resumed.

Driussi then had a seemingly clear goal blocked by Wendy St. Felix, but after so much frustration, got an absolute gift to make it 2-0.

Alex Ring’s service from a recycled corner found Driussi breaking the offside trap, but in truth, the Argentine’s header was easy work. Sadly for Décius, his brilliant performance had a momentary letdown, and an easy save slipped off his hands and over the line.

This being the CONCACAF Champions League, the strangeness ramped up from there. As Zardes pleaded his case for a penalty kick, Décius very nearly had his pocket picked by Diego Fagundez while trying to milk the clock for some precious seconds.

A VAR check over the Zardes incident lasted over four agonizing minutes, but referee Oshane Nation at last concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence to overturn his initial call. Violette maintained their narrow lead.

Austin had already thrown the kitchen sink at Violette, so the late stages had to be something along the lines of tossing anything else that wasn’t bolted down. Wolff’s sliced attempt at a side-volley left everyone in the stadium holding their breath before floating inches wide, while Driussi’s attempt at a shot from 70 yards or so was arguably less of a threat.

With Violette putting all 11 men within 30 yards of their own goal, the refereeing crew agreed to 10 minutes of stoppage time. Adam Lundqvist’s bullet of a half-volley flashed wide after a glancing deflection in traffic, while every chance Violette had to put the ball into the Q2 Stadium stands was taken.

At long last, Nation — who tacked on about 90 additional seconds due to stoppage-time knocks for Décius and several Violette players cramping up from their efforts — ended what has to go down as an all-time classic for the CCL.

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Austin FC’s CCL debut ended with a nightmarish 3-0 loss to Haiti’s Violette AC

The club’s first continental match couldn’t have gone worse

Austin FC’s CONCACAF Champions League debut couldn’t really have gone much worse.

Facing another CCL debutant in Violette AC of Haiti Tuesday night, the Texas club fell to a calamitous 3-0 first-leg defeat. Miche-Naider Chéry powered two first-half headers home before a nearly unimaginable own goal from Amro Tarek early in the second half took the game into unforeseen territory.

The situation seemed to promise good things for Austin. They were one of MLS’s best teams in 2022, and with a deep, experienced roster, there was plenty of room to rotate and still hold high expectations. Josh Wolff made nine changes from the team that beat CF Montréal 1-0 over the weekend, but every starter for Austin had at least one full pro season under their belt. MLS veterans like Diego Fagundez (along with goalkeeper Brad Stuver, one of the two holdovers), Hector Jiménez, and Nick Lima were all in the fold.

On top of that, political unrest in Haiti saw CONCACAF relocate the game from Port-au-Prince to Estadio Cibao FC in the Dominican Republic. Cibao FC, incidentally, is the team Violette had knocked off to secure their place in the round of 16. No Haitian team had ever won a CCL match since the the region’s top club tournament changed to its larger format.

Instead, things started poorly and never really got better for Los Verdes. A 13th minute cross from the electric Roberto Louima — who made light work out of Jiménez on Austin’s right flank all night — picked out Chéry with an in-swinging cross, and the 25-year-old was left unmarked by Lima or the late-arriving Tarek, heading Violette into the lead.

Violette’s recipe seemed pretty simple: stay in a compact, 4-4-2 mid-block scheme, allow Austin easy possession but deny space between the lines, and steer all counters towards Louima on the left.

With Austin never really solving the puzzle, it was little surprise that the same tactical pattern ended up leading to a second Violette goal.

Jiménez was stuck trying to prevent Louima from cutting into the box, and with Jhojan Valencia taking forever to get into position so they could team up on the winger, Violette took advantage. Louima shimmied before slipping the ball to overlapping left back Denilson Pierre. From the endline, Pierre’s cross found Chéry with a more difficult task on his hands, as Tarek and Lima were closer to him, but the big man simply overpowered Tarek to make it a brace.

Austin got into the locker room down 2-0, and Wolff opted to show some trust in his guys to solve the problem ahead of them. No panic, no “coach makes five substitutions at halftime” headlines. Think a few tactical pointers and a stern reminder that this team is a lot better than what they showed for 45 minutes on the turf in Santiago de los Caballeros.

Whatever good that did was undone by a disaster that flummoxed Fox’s broadcast team, such was its sheer unlikeliness.

Once again, the move started with Louima, with Chéry bringing play over to the left to find Violette’s star attraction. Louima danced into the box before taking a shot that Lima could only deflect rather than block to safety. The looping rebound floated into Chéry’s path, and that’s where Tarek’s miseries began.

First, after having been in a reasonable defensive position as Louima sized Lima up, Tarek lost track of Chéry, and he followed the arc of the ball rather than finding his mark until it was too late. Chéry was denied a hat trick by what was frankly an astounding save from Stuver, who despite going full-speed to his left managed to shoot his right arm out in time to somehow prevent a goal.

Spare a thought for how Stuver must have felt, flat on his back and trying to regain his feet, when Tarek adjusted to the rebound. The center back panicked, and needlessly: Chéry’s attempt to get to the ball saw him slip and fall. He never would have gotten there, Tarek could have turned upfield and walked out of the danger.

Instead, a catastrophe. Tarek shaped to blast the ball into the stands, but instead unleashed a cracking volley that flew right over the prone Stuver, making it 3-0 in Violette’s favor and leaving Austin with a mountain to climb in the second leg.

After the match, Wolff said one of the only things you can say as a coach after such a shambolic defeat. “Really disappointed with the result, with the performance to a lot of degrees, but I’m gonna take responsibility. I did not get these guys wound up enough to compete and understand what this was going to be about.”

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St. Louis City won its inaugural game after a bizarre Austin FC mistake

It’s only week one, but we may have the strangest goal of the MLS season already

St. Louis City was not given much of a chance in its first ever MLS game, facing a daunting trip to Western Conference power Austin FC.

But thanks in part to one of the strangest mistakes we’ll ever see on an MLS field, the expansion club shocked Austin FC in a 3-2 win on Saturday night.

After St. Louis took the lead through Tim Parker in the first half, order appeared to be restored after goals from Sebastián Driussi and Jon Gallagher gave Austin a 2-1 advantage in the second half.

But in the 78th minute, Austin FC defender Kipp Keller had possession and turned towards his goal. Right in front of him was Jared Stroud.

Now if this were last season, Keller passing the ball to Stroud would have made perfect sense, as Stroud played for Austin FC. But Stroud is now a member of St. Louis City, which is decidedly not the team that Keller plays for.

And yet.

We’ve seen defenders inadvertently pass backwards to an opponent plenty of times, but it’s usually a blind pass. Here, Keller seems to have simply forgot that Stroud wasn’t his teammate anymore.

Speaking to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after the game, Stroud clearly felt for his buddy Keller.

“Kipp’s a good friend of mine,” Stroud said, his voice confirming how bad he felt for Keller. Stroud said Keller looked at him twice – “maybe he recognized me,” he said – and then without looking played it to him. “I feel bad for him. But I was happy to score. It was like, ‘Shoot it.’ I didn’t think twice.” He knew what to do. “I played against that goalie for two years,” he said.

Stroud’s goal was only the beginning of the comeback, with João Klauss scoring a late winner for St. Louis to secure the shock of the early MLS season.

It’s only week one, but we may not see a more surprising result all season long. We almost certainly won’t see a stranger goal.

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Driussi turned down Premier League offer to stay with Austin FC

The Argentine star finished as MVP runner-up in 2022

Austin FC star Sebastián Driussi has said he rejected the chance to move to the Premier League in favor of signing a new contract with the MLS side.

Amid interest from abroad, Driussi signed a extension on Tuesday with Austin FC through the 2025 season with an option for 2026.

The Argentine playmaker turned in an outstanding 2022 campaign, scoring 22 goals and adding seven assists as Austin FC reached the Western Conference final.

Driussi was on a base salary of $2.2 million in 2022, per MLS players’ union figures, which was good for the 25th highest in the league. He will now reportedly be among the top earners in MLS.

At a press conference to announce his new deal, the 27-year-old admitted he had options in England — with Leeds strongly linked prior to the January transfer window closing.

“As you know, there was a very important offer from a club in England,” he said. “But, well, my head was always in Austin.”

“There was plenty of interest for Sebastián around the world in many different leagues,” head coach Josh Wolff added.

“I think he was quite honest with us [that] this is where he wanted to be. Ownership recognized that; Anthony Precourt made it a real emphasis in the offseason to get this contract done and get the commitment from the club to him but also Sebastián’s commitment to us.

“In the end, it’s a decision that Sebastián has and he has full control of that. So I think his intentions were quite clear to us; his ambitions are with Austin FC. What the future holds beyond Austin FC, when that happens, if it ever happens? We will see.”

Driussi finished second in the race for the 2022 MLS MVP, as Nashville SC star Hany Mukhtar took home the award.
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LAFC showed Austin FC and the rest of MLS how high the bar is in 3-0 playoff demolition

LAFC delivered a message to the rest of MLS in a dominant win

LAFC made sure that the MLS Cup final will be at their house, and in emphatic fashion.

The Supporters’ Shield winners dismantled Austin FC, winning 3-0 on a day where they could have probably doubled their margin of victory. From the opening whistle to full time, it was a truly dominant performance, with goals from Chicho Arango, Kwadwo Opoku, and an own goal from the unfortunate Maxi Urruti.

It spoke to the attacking menace LAFC offers that even a team so defined by a front-foot, aesthetically pleasing style as Austin opted to defend out of a low-ish 4-4-2 block rather than their normally more open approach. Josh Wolff wasn’t asking his players to hoof long balls — a spell of possession between the 7th and 8th minutes saw them connect nearly 20 passes, including one from Ruben Gabrielsen within 40 yards of the LAFC goal — but the men in green were certainly defending for long spells.

While Austin were having some success at luring the home side into unsuccessful pressing attempts, LAFC were still creating all the danger. José Cifuentes crashed a shot off the post in the 17th minute, and as Austin started to move their line up after weathering the initial storm, Brad Stuver had numerous worries on balls in behind for all three LAFC forwards. The biggest of those threats by far saw Stuver misread a diagonal towards Denis Bouanga. The Gabonese winger beat Stuver to it, but his angled shot towards an empty net was blocked behind for a corner.

Unfortunately for Austin, that corner resulted in a goal. Chiellini drew some extra attention on Carlos Vela’s delivery, allowing Arango to slip past Moussa Djitté and head home for a 29th minute opener.

Austin’s choice to stand off of LAFC’s defenders was repeatedly ending with longer-range passes that picked out runs from Bouanga and Vela; if anything, the visitors were in pure survival mode. Stuver made difficult saves on Cifuentes and Vela in the final minutes.

Halftime arrived, and Stats Perform had credited the Verde with just one shot attempt:

The second half continued in the same pattern, with Stuver making saves and Crepeau a spectator. Appropriately, LAFC padded their lead in the same manner, as their set piece dominance all year long paid off again. Urruti had just been sent on as an attacking substitute by Wolff, but his first touch was an unmitigated disaster: unsighted on Vela’s in-swinging service, the ball found his forehead, and he couldn’t react in time to do anything but nod it past Stuver.

Austin were adrift. Even when it seemed that they might be thrown a lifeline when Sebastian Ibeagha stepped on Diego Fagundez’s foot in the LAFC box, referee Armando Villarreal deemed it a clean play, and stuck to his call despite a VAR check revealed clear contact.

For the second-year club, it was just that kind of day. A minute after Crepeau made his first (and only) save of the day, an utterly bizarre bounce gave Opoku a gift at the top of the box, and the young Ghanaian gleefully fired past Stuver in the 81st minute.

Bouanga lashed home a potential fourth with virtually the last kick, only for an offside call to keep the scoreline from more closely reflecting just how big the gulf between the teams was on the day.

LAFC’s win guarantees an MLS Cup final at Banc of California Stadium on Saturday, November 5, with kickoff set for 4:00pm Eastern.

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Austin FC is turning grievance into an art form

The upstart franchise is bravely overcoming the MLS website’s preseason predictions

Austin FC has had a stunning turnaround season, reaching the Western Conference final after finishing near the bottom of the table in its expansion season.

There are a whole host of reasons Austin has been so much better in 2022, like Sebastián Driussi staying healthy and becoming an MVP finalist, Brad Stuver continuing to be one of the league’s best goalkeepers, and Julio Cascante and Ruben Gabrielsen forming a solid center-back pairing. 

But if you ask Austin, another key factor has been the massive chip on their shoulder they’ve been carrying from something pretty innocuous: the league website’s preseason predictions.

Coming off a rough expansion season Austin FC wasn’t predicted to make much noise in 2022 — which head coach Josh Wolff was keen to highlight during the club’s preseason.

Nine months later, Wolff’s list of offenders is still making the rounds. After Austin beat FC Dallas on Sunday to reach the conference final, the club’s owner Anthony Precourt went one step further in airing out his grievances: lamination!

 

There is no way to measure how much Austin’s rise has been fueled by its fiery reaction to a cadre of writers listing out teams on a spreadsheet. But maybe it is working a little?

 

Austin’s never-ending grievance culture has been adopted by its fanbase as well, as supporters carried a banner reading “keep doubting us” into the match at Q2 on Sunday.

But those fans might want to bear in mind, though, that some of those doubts came from inside the house.

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Austin FC’s dream season rolls on to the Western Conference final

Sebastián Driussi scored the winner on an electric night at Q2 Stadium

Austin FC finished one point out of last place in 2021, its expansion season. One year later, Josh Wolff’s team is in the Western Conference final.

The Verde’s dream 2022 continued on Sunday night when they defeated Texas rival FC Dallas 2-1 in the conference semifinal at Q2 Stadium.

The game turned in three first-half minutes, during which the home side scored the two goals they would need on the night.

Moussa Djitté found the net when the ball broke to him off a corner kick in the 26th minute. Three minutes later, league MVP finalist Sebastián Driussi took advantage of a turnover to net an outstanding solo goal that would end up being the game-winner.

FC Dallas produced an improved second half, highlighted by Alan Velasco’s 65th-minute goal to give them a lifeline, but they could not produce the equalizer they needed to force the game into extra time. Brad Stuver was a big reason behind that.

The Austin goalkeeper produced one of the biggest saves of his career with the clock winding down in the second half, denying Jáder Obrian’s point-blank header to keep his side in front.

Second-seeded Austin will now travel to face top seed LAFC on Sunday in the conference final. Wolff said that matchup is what he expected all along.

“It’s what it should have been, it’s what it was always going to be,” the coach said on ESPN after the game, “so we look forward to the opportunity.”

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Austin FC comes back to beat 10-man RSL in wild MLS playoff affair

This one should’ve been over sooner, but Austin will take any win in the postseason

Austin FC probably should have defeated Real Salt Lake long before penalties in a wild MLS first-round playoff match on Sunday.

But, despite playing more than half of the 120 minutes with a man advantage, Austin needed some heroics from Brad Stuver in the shootout to finally surpass RSL at Q2 Stadium, advancing to the conference semifinal against either FC Dallas or Minnesota United next weekend.

RSL was up two goals inside 15 minutes, but after Sebastián Driussi pulled one back for the home side, the game was turned on its head by a boneheaded red card for RSL’s Rubio Rubín just after halftime.

From there on it was pure survival mode for RSL and they nearly got there, but Driussi’s stoppage-time penalty rescued Austin’s season and sent the game into extra time tied 2-2.

Austin would end up with a whopping 38 total shots, outshooting RSL 25-3 in the 67 minutes following Rubín’s red. But it would take a shootout to finally vanquish RSL.

Sergio Córdova gave RSL the lead just three minutes in when he headed home a perfectly placed cross from Andrew Brody.

It went from bad to worse for the favored home side just 10 minutes later when Jhojan Valencia was called for a handball in the box after a VAR review, and Córdova stepped up to give RSL a two-goal lead from the spot less than 15 minutes in.

But Austin got back into the the match 15 minutes later and unsurprisingly, it was the team’s MVP candidate Driussi who produced an excellent glancing header from Diego Fagundez’s inswinging cross.

 

After a horrendous miss from substitute Emiliano Rigoni from inches away, the game turned on a moment of madness from Rubín. Already on a yellow, the striker made an ill-advised slide while stretching for a through ball that was out of reach and caught Stuver on the leg. Referee Victor Rivas had an easy decision to show a second yellow.

Down a man and with most of the second half left to play, RSL went into a defensive shell. Austin appeared stumped and the visitors were on their way to a famous victory until a stoppage-time twist gave the home side the lifeline they needed.

Scott Caldwell was whistled for a handball in the box, giving Driussi the chance to complete his brace from the penalty spot and send the game into extra time. He made no mistake, and it was 2-2.

The home side would nearly score in extra time but was frustrated time and again, with Driussi seeing a goal chalked off for offside after previously having a goal disallowed in regulation for a handball.

But ultimately Stuver proved the hero, saving two RSL penalties in the shootout and then watching Tate Schmitt’s spot kick fly over the bar to clinch the win for Austin.

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