Tag: Violette AC

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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