Oleksandr Svatok clearly was put into Saturday night's match against Portland Timbers FC to be a defensive reinforcement.
That he turned out to score the match winner in Austin FC's 2-1 win — after holding a late lead didn't work out for him and his teammates — was an unexpected bonus.
"I'm so happy for him," said interim head coach Davy Arnaud. "It's funny because he can be kind of quiet, but you see how he competes on the field and he's funny. All the guys love him. ... Svatok's one of the guys that you root for because he is all about the team. He's all about the collective. He does everything the right way every single day. He doesn't complain. He goes about his business. He's a guy you root for.
"So to see him have that moment for the team, and the celebration, obviously, it's the last minutes of the game, so the celebration, it's a huge moment, but you see how happy everyone is for him that he gets to have that moment. I think it says everything you want to know about Svatok."
Svatok added his views on the magic moment during his portion of the post-match press conference.
"I'm very happy because it's scored [in the] last minutes," he said. "We had very hard months, a lot of trips and games. It's not easy, but today we deserved to win, and it's a very important three points."
Arnaud noted that the win was satisfying in a triangular and singular road trip to bring the team together, flying first to the Big Apple to take on Toluca in a Leagues Cup quarterfinal held for reasons in Harrison, N.J., and then setting out west for the road match in the Rose City rather than returning to familiar Austin. (And, might I point out, missing out on the first false fall evening of the year after a few grueling and hot weeks of Definite Summer.)
