Austin FC suffers shocking 3-0 loss to Violette AC in Concacaf Champions League opener

It certainly wasn’t a run-of–the-mill Austin FC match — at least not by recent standards. 

Rodney Redes got a rare start, Hector Jimenez got the start and the captain’s armband, it kicked off at 5 p.m. Austin time, and it was played on a turf field one country over from where the hosts are actually based. 

And, to Austin FC's dismay, the final scoreline was a shocker as well. 

Austin FC added to Concacaf Champions League’s somewhat wacky and maverick lore on Tuesday by making its debut in the tournament — the first of five MLS teams taking the field in 2023 to defend the league’s claim to the title, won by a Sounders club last May that failed to qualify for this year’s edition. 

But in what may be an upset living long in CCL lore, Verde went down 2-0 less than a half-hour into the match, en route to an unexpected-by-many 3-0 loss that puts last year’s Western Conference finalists on the verge of CCL elimination — by a team some feared might not be able to get enough players visas to even compete in this opening round of the 16-team tournament. 

Wolff takes the blame

In the post-match press conference, Verde head coach Josh Wolff took blame for the loss, asserting that even a squad missing Sebastián Driussi, Leo Väisänen, Dani Pereira and Alex Ring was talented enough to handle Violette. 

"I have full confidence we can go home and still get a result," Wolff said after the match in a limited, Concacaf-controlled media availability. "I have full confidence in the group that played tonight ... I take responsibility for not having these guys mentally in the right space. Concacaf is a different animal. We talked about it. We tried to emphasize that, we have some of that experience inside the group, but I have to create more tension in their mind and understanding what this game is going to look like. 

"It's going to be combative," he added. "It's going to be difficult. It's going to have ebbs and flows — and, and we talked about that at length, but I didn't do a good enough job getting them ready ... The players that are out in the field can absolutely get it done." 

Ethan Finlay, assessing the match in an interview that aired on FS1, dubbed the match an "embarrassing performance." 

Why Driussi and Ring didn't travel

Wolff said that Driussi and Ring were held back because, as he put it, he's "quite delicate with them on turf. We knew the surface was tough. We knew it wasn't great. So knowing that the situation, I don't want to put them out there in that case." 

Despite Wolff's confidence in the group — which included a first-ever center back pairing of Nick Lima and Amro Tarek — Austin FC was outplayed by the Haitian team in the first 45, with no shots on target, compared to six shots for Violette with both its on-frame efforts finding home. 

Violette AC got its opening goal in the 13th minute, with both Lima and Tarek coming up short in their first real test of the match. Lima was worked one-v-one on the outside by Roberto Louima before Miche-Naider Chéry outjumped and outmuscled Tarek to head in the goal. 

26 minutes later, Violette went down the same left flank, creating a nearly identical play with Chéry again besting Tarek for his second goal, after Denilson Pierre worked past Jimenez and crossing the ball in toward the big center forward. 

"We don't have great relationships along the back line at the moment," Wolff observed. "Nick was playing center back; Amro was also in there for the first time. So those relationships haven't been built out and developed yet. We were certainly undermanned at center back, to say the least ... but those players are good enough to handle that; we could have managed those situations better." 

The best Verde could muster in the first half on offense was a 27th-minute attempt in which Sofiane Djeffal hoofed a long pass to Redes. Redes chested the ball down and got in good position to shoot, but hit it wide of the target.  

2-0: Better than 3-0

The match looked so dire for Austin that, after Violette scored the second goal, Alexi Lalas, in a commentator role for the match, went into a Lalasian spiel about how Wolff needed to make immediate changes to avoid letting the deficit slip from 2-0 to 3-0, inspiring an exchange that may or may not be coming to a T-shirt near you soon. 

Any hope that Austin fans might have had in the second half was squelched less than two minutes after the whistle, with Amro Tarek attempting to clear a Brad Stuver save and deftly finishing for a shocking own goal. 

Wolff finally made changes in the 54th minute, swapping in Emiliano Rigoni, Owen Wolff and Jon Gallagher for Redes, Jhojan Valencia and Jimenez. But the changes — plus a 69th-minute swapping of Will Bruin for Diego Fagundez — wasn’t enough to generate a spark for a team that usually looks for that from Driussi. 

"Obviously, they punished us," Wolff assessed flatly. "We've got to lick our wounds and get ready for a good match on the returning Tuesday." 

Is there hope on Tuesday?

Indeed, all is not lost for Austin FC in CCL, and the tournament is known for comebacks and improbable storylines coming to life. Last year, Pumas UNAM lost its opener at New England 3-0 and then turned around and won the return leg 3-0, then triumphing in penalties and going on a run through the tournament that only stopped in the final round against the Sounders. 

And Austin did show signs of life late, with Owen Wolff just missing on an 84th-minute shot and Maxi Urruti — who played the full 90 with Gyasi Zardes out of the lineup — clanging a shot off the woodwork two minutes later. Getting an away goal would have made the prospects easier for Austin; now, the best Austin can hope for is returning the 3-0 favor like Pumas did against the Revs. With CCL's away goals rule in effect, Violette scoring a single goal at Q2 next Tuesday means Austin would have to put up five goals to overcome Violette's advantage. 

If there's anything to be hopeful about for Austin FC fans in the loss, it's that Kipp Keller was pressed into action for the second time in 10 days when a starting center back went down, and saw out the rest of the game with solid if not spectacular defensive work. This time, it was Tarek who had to sub out in minute 66, and even though the crowd razzed Keller nearly every time he touched the ball, he remained calm and composed. 

But, as Wolff noted, the center back situation for Verde is still not ideal, and for those who might delight in the team's miseries, Tuesday brought an entirely unexpected delight, with a weekend test at RSL leading into next Tuesday's tall task.