To hear Robert Taylor tell it to Austin media on Thursday, he's thrilled to be leaving a team featuring Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Sergio Busquets — though also a team feeling the fresh sting of a Concacaf Champions Cup exit — to this new-to-him Texas team.
"We like to play pretty aggressive attacking football, which really fits my style," Taylor said regarding what he's learned of Verde so far. "So I like to run it behind a lot. And we are aggressive. When we try when we lose the ball, we try and win it back immediately. Those are all things that I like to do on the field as well. So I think that the idea and the identity of the team fits really well."
Taylor praised where the team's collective head is at, saying, "The energy of the team, it's super. We want to win games, and you can see it's a team with a big winning mentality. So that stands out in training a lot."
He also sees himself in the overall project as both a winger and midfielder, noting, "As long as I can build a connection with everyone, I think that will help."
Taylor also pointed out he's not entirely unfamiliar with Austin FC, having played in the stadium before — in 2022, when a pre-Messi, late-stage Brek Shea Miami lost 5-1 to Verde in the second match of the season.
"We went to check out the field two hours before the game, and the fans were already there," he recalled. "So that already got to me. I was like, wow, the fans are really great here. The atmosphere was amazing."
Taylor also checked in with fellow Finnish international Leo Väisänen as the trade went down, noting that they're good friends and he's been providing reliable intel.
"I've been speaking with Leo a lot, and he had nothing but good things to say about Austin," Taylor confided. "So that obviously got me also really excited. And before, before even just getting traded, I was asking about Austin, how he likes it, and how he's getting settled down. And he had a really good time."
Taylor's new coach, Nico Estévez, provided an overarching observation about his newest player: "He's ready for everything. It's more like how we want to use him and how we also want to take care of him, but he's ready for anything that we ask."
Which is good to hear, because Thursday also brought more definitive news about midfielder Dani Pereira's injury, originally projected as a quadriceps injury keeping him out four weeks. That's not quite the case.
Joy, pain, sunshine, and rain
Estévez revealed on Thursday that Pereira's injury is a little more involved than initially suspected – and involving a slightly different part of his body.
"It's an injury that is between four and eight weeks, and [if] everything goes in the right way, [it] could be four to five weeks, it may be four to six," he shared. "It depends [for] every player, how how they heal, how they recover. But he's doing well. He's making progress already this week and then I think the next week, he will start doing some things on the field."
It turns out it's a hip flexor injury, and if you peruse the Cleveland Clinic info page, what's here aligns with the eye test from last Saturday. (Based on the timetable Estévez gave, it sounds like a Grade 2 hip flexor injury, meaning it doesn't require surgery like a Grade 3 would, but it's not an ice-and-rest bump in the road a Grade 1 would be.)
"He tried to hit the ball harder than he has ever done it," Estévez explained. "And then when you try to do those things, sometimes your body is not ready for that, and that happened to him."
On the bright side, fullback Mikkel Desler is nearing a return, with Estévez saying (in Spanish) that he'll likely resume training with the team by the end of the week. His return is a bit of a moving target, but here's a quick look at the spectrum in which we could conceivably see him:
- May 14, vs. Atlanta
- May 17, vs. Vancouver
- May 21, Open Cup match should they get past El Paso
- May 24, at Minnesota
- May 28, vs. RSL
- May 31, at San Diego
Given the timeline, I can't imagine he wouldn't see minutes any later than the Vancouver match (though game state could be weird against the MLS-team-most-on-fire-right-now), and an Open Cup match seems like an ideal situation for starting him should that present itself.
Faced wth a question about who Estévez might play in the glut of matches coming in May, he gave a fairly vanilla answer that also made tactical sense:
"The selections will be based on the best players that we have in that moment to win the game, on the physical side, mental side, tactical and technical side, and the opponent that we play against, and we want to put on the field the best team possible every game."
On its face, that all makes sense, but my read on this is Desler as soon as possible, and Taylor as much as possible, but that might be just me.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. You can comment here if you’re a subscriber, or reach out via Bluesky.
To hear Robert Taylor tell it to Austin media on Thursday, he's thrilled to be leaving a team featuring Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Sergio Busquets — though also a team feeling the fresh sting of a Concacaf Champions Cup exit — to this new-to-him Texas team.
"We like to play pretty aggressive attacking football, which really fits my style," Taylor said regarding what he's learned of Verde so far. "So I like to run it behind a lot. And we are aggressive. When we try when we lose the ball, we try and win it back immediately. Those are all things that I like to do on the field as well. So I think that the idea and the identity of the team fits really well."
Taylor praised where the team's collective head is at, saying, "The energy of the team, it's super. We want to win games, and you can see it's a team with a big winning mentality. So that stands out in training a lot."
He also sees himself in the overall project as both a winger and midfielder, noting, "As long as I can build a connection with everyone, I think that will help."
Taylor also pointed out he's not entirely unfamiliar with Austin FC, having played in the stadium before — in 2022, when a pre-Messi, late-stage Brek Shea Miami lost 5-1 to Verde in the second match of the season.
"We went to check out the field two hours before the game, and the fans were already there," he recalled. "So that already got to me. I was like, wow, the fans are really great here. The atmosphere was amazing."
Taylor also checked in with fellow Finnish international Leo Väisänen as the trade went down, noting that they're good friends and he's been providing reliable intel.
"I've been speaking with Leo a lot, and he had nothing but good things to say about Austin," Taylor confided. "So that obviously got me also really excited. And before, before even just getting traded, I was asking about Austin, how he likes it, and how he's getting settled down. And he had a really good time."
Taylor's new coach, Nico Estévez, provided an overarching observation about his newest player: "He's ready for everything. It's more like how we want to use him and how we also want to take care of him, but he's ready for anything that we ask."
Which is good to hear, because Thursday also brought more definitive news about midfielder Dani Pereira's injury, originally projected as a quadriceps injury keeping him out four weeks. That's not quite the case.
Joy, pain, sunshine, and rain
Estévez revealed on Thursday that Pereira's injury is a little more involved than initially suspected – and involving a slightly different part of his body.
"It's an injury that is between four and eight weeks, and [if] everything goes in the right way, [it] could be four to five weeks, it may be four to six," he shared. "It depends [for] every player, how how they heal, how they recover. But he's doing well. He's making progress already this week and then I think the next week, he will start doing some things on the field."
It turns out it's a hip flexor injury, and if you peruse the Cleveland Clinic info page, what's here aligns with the eye test from last Saturday. (Based on the timetable Estévez gave, it sounds like a Grade 2 hip flexor injury, meaning it doesn't require surgery like a Grade 3 would, but it's not an ice-and-rest bump in the road a Grade 1 would be.)
"He tried to hit the ball harder than he has ever done it," Estévez explained. "And then when you try to do those things, sometimes your body is not ready for that, and that happened to him."
On the bright side, fullback Mikkel Desler is nearing a return, with Estévez saying (in Spanish) that he'll likely resume training with the team by the end of the week. His return is a bit of a moving target, but here's a quick look at the spectrum in which we could conceivably see him:
Given the timeline, I can't imagine he wouldn't see minutes any later than the Vancouver match (though game state could be weird against the MLS-team-most-on-fire-right-now), and an Open Cup match seems like an ideal situation for starting him should that present itself.
Faced wth a question about who Estévez might play in the glut of matches coming in May, he gave a fairly vanilla answer that also made tactical sense:
"The selections will be based on the best players that we have in that moment to win the game, on the physical side, mental side, tactical and technical side, and the opponent that we play against, and we want to put on the field the best team possible every game."
On its face, that all makes sense, but my read on this is Desler as soon as possible, and Taylor as much as possible, but that might be just me.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. You can comment here if you’re a subscriber, or reach out via Bluesky.
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