AUSTIN, Texas — The blueprint that Josh Wolff presented to beat FC Dallas looked awfully familiar to his Austin FC players. Heading into a Western Conference semifinal against a Texas rival, the Verde head coach set his team up to play a style that opponents usually use on them.
“Dallas is a team that kind of has the same style as us,” midfielder Dani Pereira said. “We like to have the ball, and we’ve seen a couple of their games where they kind of get desperate when they have the ball too much and when teams sit down just like how teams sit with us. It just puts stress on them.”
Pereira added, “It sounded good to us.”
A combination of good planning and flawless execution in the first half frustrated FCD and its coach Nico Estévez, as Austin FC jumped out to a 2-0 lead on the way to a 2-1 victory that sent Verde through to the Western Conference final where it will face Los Angeles FC.
Despite conceding the majority of possession to the visitors — a rarity at Q2 Stadium — Austin FC still managed to spring the majority of attacks with twice as many shots (18 to nine) and six shots on goal to Dallas’s five.
Possession ended at 52.6% in favor of the visitors after hovering closer to 60-40 for much of the first half as Austin shut off access to the front line of Jesús Ferreira, Paul Arriola and Alan Velasco.
“Possession in this game I wasn't worried about,” Wolff said. “I flashed up some stats to these guys this week, four or five games where we were 40% or lower in possession, but the opponent’s not getting a whole lot. If we had to get to that point, the guys were willing to go there.
“But we want to play, we certainly want to disorganize, we want to hurt the opponent, and we want to score goals and win. The guys nailed it in every sense tonight.”
To get the balance right, Wolff made the bold move of starting Moussa Djitté at center forward instead of Maxi Urruti. The Senegalese striker had made only three regular-season starts, while Urruti had nine goals in 28 starts.
But the bigger body of Djitté was a critical piece of providing an outlet against the Dallas press, and he rewarded Wolff’s faith by scoring off a corner kick in the 26th minute. Djitté also stretched the back line on Sebastián Driussi’s goal three minutes later, running ahead of the play to create space for the Argentine’s shot.
The other key personnel decision was the re-insertion of Dani Pereira to the starting lineup, playing alongside captain Alex Ring in a rigid 4-4-2 formation. They provided protection to the back line and sprung attacks by moving the ball quickly upfield and away from FCD’s pressure.
“Moussa gave us a physical presence,” Wolff said. “We knew they were going to press us, and the two center mids (Ring and Pereira) did a great job. We disrupted their press early on. We had lots of answers for what they were trying to get coming after us. … If we could draw it up, that’s exactly how you draw it up. Moussa gave us the goal and gave us good power.”
This wasn’t a bunker in the traditional sense, because Austin showed plenty of teeth in the attack, but it was a conscious decision to back off of the press that often fuels the attack — particularly when Driussi can spring forward with a numerical advantage.
The payoff was evident after the first Austin goal, and FCD came totally unglued. Velasco tracked back to get a rare touch on the ball, and let it bounce just far enough out in front of him for Driussi to pounce. All of a sudden, it was 2-0.
Austin FC could relate.
“It's just really, really annoying playing against a team that sits down, but that was the plan,” Pereira said. “Just kind of like sit on them low and then try to counter attack.”
It seemed clear from the jump that Dallas expected something different from Austin, and for good reason. Wolff and Estévez have very similar styles, having both coached under Gregg Berhalter with the Columbus Crew and the United States men’s national team.
If anything, 2022 has taught us that Estévez is the more pragmatic of the Berhalter disciples, more attuned to change things up if and when a match requires. But on Sunday, Wolff flipped the script and thwarted his close friend.
"The first half, we didn't look ready," FCD center back Matt Hedges assessed. "We didn't come out with intensity, and that showed. You can't win playoff games playing one half. That's the story of the game.
"We seemed like we were ready up until the whistle," he added. "From there, I don't know what happened."
The element of surprise won’t be there when Austin FC faces LAFC, but the confidence of executing a game plan to perfection feels awfully good, no matter what the plan is.