Three takeaways from another scoreless Austin FC misadventure

Several weeks ago, I checked in with my 5-year-old daughter — more into Roblox than soccer these days — about attending an upcoming Austin FC home match. 

She replied, dismissively, “I’m taking a break from Austin FC.” 

After Saturday’s lackluster performance against LA Galaxy, resulting in a 2-0 loss and a scoreless streak now extended to 355 minutes, fans might want to follow her lead. 

Some basic numbers from Saturday's match provide a stark contrast between a Galaxy team that needed and got its first win and a Verde team who is now winless in its last five, with an improved San Jose team coming to Q2 Stadium next weekend — a side that Austin’s never beaten in its history. 

The Galaxy dominated possession, 62.4% to 37.6%, led in passes 574-341 (at an 89% passing efficiency compared to Verde’s 78.9%), and had eight shots on goal to Austin’s two. 

While Verde held LA scoreless in the first half, with goalkeeper Brad Stuver registering six saves throughout the match, the Galaxy got on the board via Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez wide open off an overload on Austin’s besieged left side in the 54th minute. Ten minutes later, an Owen Wolff giveaway led to a Galaxy counter that Riqui Puig finished off, despite Wolff’s valiant effort to close on the Catalan midfielder. 

It was the first goal of the season scored by each Galaxy player. 

Here are some takeaways from a match the Verde faithful will want to put behind them. 

An anemic offense

The Verde passing map from Saturday’s match underscored what the eye test showed: A struggle to connect in the final third and get starting forward Maxi Urruti meaningfully involved. Ethan Finlay, so empathetic after last weekend’s scoreless home draw about the team’s need to step up and score, had an early chance blocked, and that ended up being one of the two best chances for Verde all night. 

(We’ll get into the Austin goal taken off the board in a moment.) 

For all the talk of Verde “breaking the seal” and the belief that one goal would open the floodgates to many, head coach Josh Wolff expressed Austin’s collective frustration with the continued drought — with the team still parked on six goals for the season and failing to score in half of their eight matches. 

“I'm hoping it's next game. I really am,” Wolff said, answering my question about when the team might reverse its current scoreless form. “We don't go out there with the intentions of losing, we don't go out there with the intentions of not scoring. I think we've shown from our inception, we're a team that plays extremely well with the ball, we create a good amount of chances and I think that's been the case in some games, and some games it hasn't. 

"But regardless, you shouldn't have to have 10 chances to score. You should still be able to score goals. You know, there are plenty of nights where you create less than that and your score. So right now, for a lot of our players and for our group, that's certainly a missing component. But we keep working and we keep pushing forward and try to identify and find different ways to create chances, but also possibly different formulas with the group as far as roster and lineup.” 

Responding to my question about recapturing the mojo Austin had in 2022 — when it scored 65 goals — Stuver added, “We scored five goals in the first two games last year. It's really easy to have mojo when you scored 10 goals in two games. There's so much confidence in your attackers when you put 10 in the back of the net in two games and that just kind of bleeds through the group. And I think this year, we didn't hit 10 goals in two games, which is crazy.

"Right now, we're just trying to find that one and just kind of find that little segment here that's going to connect all the dots," Stuver continued. "And I mean, I think we're getting the ball in good areas. We're getting guys in good areas. It’s just, at the moment, the ball just doesn't want to get in the back of the net.” 

On ‘what a captain should be’

One of the biggest offseason changes Austin FC made was transferring the captain’s armband from Alex Ring — who looked to be in a midfield minutes battle with Owen Wolff and Dani Pereira before Julio Cascante’s injury made him a more permanent part of the lineup — to Sebastián Driussi. 

Ring’s late-match confrontation with Chicharito might have been born of frustration, but showed a fighting spirit encouraging in the face of the flatness Verde demonstrated going down two goals — even with the odd substitution that brought both Gyasi Zardes and Will Bruin on late.

Stuver talked about the leadership that multiple players on the team bring, even with veterans like Ruben Gabrielsen and Felipe Martins having moved on after providing their own brand of leadership presence in last year’s successful season. 

“We've talked for the past few years about the different leadership qualities that we have inside of our locker room,” he explained. “Ring is the type of guy that will get into people's faces, he's fiery, he will chirp at people, he will be right there in the middle of a scrum.” 

He then said, by contrast, “Seba leads by the way that he plays, the way that he works defensively, the effort that he puts in at training, just the charisma that he has to bring guys and elevate everybody else's level … is something that we noticed and we know that for us is captain-like. 

“I know everyone has this idea of what a captain should be,” he continued. “But there's no one size fits all on who a captain is … Just because Ring isn’t a captain doesn't mean that he's not going to be the same leader that he was when he wore the armband. Because Seb has the armband doesn't mean that he's going to be a different leader than what he was without the armband.” 

He added, regarding the leadership roles in the locker room, that Pereira’s stepping up in that role alongside other people who lead in their various ways, noting about Driussi, “He is our captain; we are going to follow him and the other leaders are going to help him in ways that he might not be as comfortable with.”

The goal taken off the board

It did appear that Driussi was leading by example with a goal as the match approached halftime — coming after he was knocked down in an apparent foul referee Chris Penso didn’t deem worthy of a whistle. The disallowed goal added to Austin’s discontent with how the match was being called, leading to Josh Wolff getting a yellow card toward the match’s close. 

“Again, the refs,” he began with exasperation before relaying, “I guess they said Seba impeded the player … that's what we were told on the field, that the defender recovering, that Seba impeded him. Again, I think a lot of Chris Penso; I think he's the best in the league. I thought it was … it was tough to watch tonight.” 

He then walked through a few plays he would have called different. That included, “The yellow card on [Tyler] Boyd, should be a second yellow, should be red,” and a possible penalty should have been called late when Zardes was held in the box, which he said was “very reminiscent of the [Western Conference] final against LAFC when Diego gets stepped on; it shouldn't be that hard. You know, Gyasi’s jumping, the guy grabs him and pulls him down.” 

Wolff added, “Refereeing is very, very challenging, but these don't seem like real hard ones. They really, really don't,” before declaring of Penso, “I thought he was poor, extremely poor on the night.” 

While refereeing wasn’t exclusively to blame for Austin’s night, it contributed to what continues to be a hard luck start to the season for Verde. Fans at this point might be tempted to follow my daughter’s lead and put their relationship on pause with Austin FC, but it’s still relatively early in the season. 

As bad as 11th place might seem at this stage of the season, it’s not so far off from the expanded playoff tier of 9th place, and as Seattle Sounders fans can tell you, a slow start isn’t a barrier to making a playoff run and even winning a championship. 

But as Wolff hinted Saturday, there might be changes coming, be it tactics or personnel. It’s not an easy stretch in front of Verde — after facing the Quakes at home, Austin’s got a road trip to Portland, hosts an FC Dallas team that might have last year’s Copa Tejas title and playoff encounter on their minds, and then travels for a midweek matchup at Seattle. 

And take it from this dad: Soccer is way more straightforward than Roblox. And for Austin FC, it doesn’t get simpler than just needing to score a goal.