Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff certainly anticipated a question about Sebastián Driussi’s red card, assessed an hour into the team’s Copa Tejas-shedding 3-1 loss to FC Dallas on Wednesday.
There are two paths Wolff could have gone down in answering it: Either to question the veracity of the red card and the true intention of a player that you then back, or to see it as a wanton and willful action on the player’s part that let the team down.
Here’s how Wolff responded to my question about the red card, coming in the eighth straight appearance in which Driussi hasn’t scored, leading me to wonder if he should be working on himself and his game rather than continuing to shoulder his additional duties as captain.
“I think it's a fair question,” Wolff said, “Tonight, he certainly showed a lack of discipline and some irresponsibility. It's a game that we have in in pretty good control. I think we all saw the response after giving up a goal was quite good, and for 58 minutes of it on the road again, against this opponent, we are pretty much dominating as we expected to do.”
“And it's frustrating,” he continued,” frustrating for the players, frustrating for the fans, more so. You know, [I] obviously empathize with them; they come down on a Wednesday and it's an opportunity for Copa Tejas, and a lack of judgment and an act of a little bit of irresponsibility really changes the game and it's frustrating on a lot of levels, but Seba’s gonna have to regroup.”
