Sire. Sadio. Mohamed Abdullah. Moussa Djitté dedicates hat trick to lost relatives, newborn son

AUSTIN, Texas — Sire. Sadio. Mohamed Abdullah. Each of the three goals Moussa Djitté scored on Wednesday night has a name.

One goal would have been enough to beat Real Salt Lake. With three, the Austin FC forward was able to shine a light on three important people in his life.

“I love my grandmother Sire. I love my brother Sadio,” Djitté said, translated from French. “These goals were for them, may they rest in peace. And I can’t forget my newly born son (Mohamed Abdullah), so he gets one of the goals, too.”

Djitté, the 22-year-old center forward from Senegal, has been away from home for each of three pivotal moments in his family in 2022. Both his grandmother and his brother died this year, and his son was born on Aug. 12 in Senegal, thousands of miles and an ocean away.

On Wednesday, Djitté had a sold-out Q2 Stadium chanting his family name. Given three opportunities in front of goal, he buried them all and lifted Verde to a much-needed win following three-straight losses.

“Football is freedom, right?" Ruben Gabrielsen said. “I think maybe when he goes on a pitch that's the only time he doesn’t think about it. He’s free. You can see today that he’s just focused on the football. It’s an escape from reality. But it's still sad. This is a happy moment, but he has life in front of him and football is just a small part. He’s so strong. We try to help him as much as we can. We love him.”

Everything lined up perfectly for Djitté on Wednesday. Austin FC coach Josh Wolff said that the 3-4-1-2 formation from Real Salt Lake went against what was expected, and made for a difficult attacking night for starter Maxi Urruti. Austin didn’t put a shot on target in the first half.

“I told him at halftime, be ready,” Wolff said. “I wasn't going to waste too much time. I knew the addition would give us something different. Their back line was gonna have trouble with a guy like Moussa, and that was what was most obvious to me.”

As it turned out, Djitté only needed one touch to make the necessary difference. Diego Fagúndez’s outside-of-the-foot cross bounced once inside the box before Djitté smashed it into the net. He came on the pitch in the 58th minute, and put Austin FC in the lead in the 60th.

In the 76th, off a corner kick, Finlay struck the crossbar with a volley and a failed clearance fell to Djitté. He drilled a volley inside the back post to make it 2-0.

And in the 80th, Gabrielsen launched a counterattack by dribbling 60 yards, then let Fagúndez’s pass slide through his legs for Djitté — who had been making a run from the right wing. 3-0.

1-2-3. Sire. Sadio. Mohamed Abdullah.

“It's been a tough year,” Wolff said. "I mean, we talk about what our roots are, about the adversity that you face as a soccer player. We're talking about bigger things. He's hung in there, and most importantly, he’s stayed committed and connected to this group. The group has stayed committed and connected to him.”

Djitté arrived to Austin in August last year, filling the biggest need for Verde at the time. And while he only scored one goal in 2021 against LA Galaxy, his hold-up play and powerful runs were a revelation for a squad that had played most of the year without a true center forward.

But for most of 2022, Djitté has been buried on the depth chart behind Urruti and Danny Hoesen, who returned from a season-ending hip surgery to score three goals in 374 minutes. Djitté has only 282 minutes this year, and his only start came back in March against Seattle. He scored a stoppage-time equalizer on May 22 against Orlando City.

You could see the frustration boiling over earlier this month in Nashville, when Djitté thought he had fairly rounded Walker Zimmerman for a shot on goal, only to be whistled for a foul. He slammed the ball into the turf and placed his hand on the neck of Shaq Moore, drawing a red card that had him suspended for the match prior to RSL, in Seattle.

But in scoring the first hat trick in Austin FC history, Djitté flashed the potential that so many of his supporters have been waiting to see. He confirmed afterward that it was his first hat trick as a professional.

“Every day he does this to people,” Gabrielsen said. “He bullies people. He bullies me. I have two kids and he bullies me, it’s disrespectful.

“When he is happy in training he is impossible to stop. Nobody can stop him. I’ve tried many times, I failed every time. This guy is fantastic. He has so many things going on in his life and to show up and do what he did (Wednesday), I’ve never seen it before.”

Gabrielsen is one of the few players who can communicate with Djitté in French. Both players came to ATX from France, where Gabrielsen played for Toulouse FC and Djitté was at Grenoble. His English is coming along slowly, but Wolff said that the makeup of the locker room has actually required him to learn as much, if not more, Spanish.

The language barrier hasn’t stopped his teammates from trying to lift his spirits through this trying year.

“The team has always been with me, the players call to check on me every time,” Djitté said. “They are good people here, they have never let me down. They feel like family.”

It will be the offseason before Djitté is finally able to rejoin his biological family back in Senegal, and meet his son for the first time. Currently, Mohamed Abdullah is living with his mother, Djitté’s mother, and what he described as “the whole family.”

On Wednesday, the Djitté name received a permanent place in Austin FC history.

Moussa Djitté's locker room speech

After the match, Djitté received the match ball from Wolff. Here is what he said, translated from French by the Austin FC media team.

"Thank you, team. Thank you all. With all the work we've put in at training, we never gave up. This was the moment we needed, this victory for the playoffs, and it's something we all know wasn't easy. But we worked hard, and this is the payoff. Everything we endured at training during these months together, we don't let go guys. We don't let go. This is the right time, we are going to go until the end. We will lift it, the trophy. And thank you to all the staff, I know it's not always easy."