Maybe this team just needs a little magic: We spice up a midweek press conference dreaming of Kervin Andrade

Certainly, if you're an Austin FC fan, you want to forget about a May that took a bitter April-ending 2-0 loss to Houston and built on it all the way to an eight-match winless streak in league play, thanks to seven hard-luck league games during the month. If not for a pair of Open Cup wins also thrown into the month, the 0-3-4 stretch might have gone down as arguably Verde's worst month in its 4 1/2 year history — and it still might.

It sounds like the coaches and players want to forget about it as well.

"It's important to mentally and physically get away from the month of May," Austin FC head coach Nico Estévez said in Thursday's press conference, in the middle of this suddenly luxurious time we have known in the past as A Week Between Games, ahead of Saturday night's match against Colorado in Commerce City (not to be confused with Denver, though they're close).

"It was really heavy, loaded with games in different competitions," he continued. "We played against really good teams this month, teams that we've already played twice against the top three in the in the league, and I think it's important that we ended up the month learning a lot about ourselves, what we can do, what can improve. And having a couple days off to reset, the guys have come back with a really good mindset and really good willingness to change the the results that we are having lately. We've had really good trainings so far, and we could be focused on some things that were important for us."

A premature injury report

The team also remains mostly healthy but is having its depth nominally tested once again heading into Saturday's match at Colorado.

Estévez indicated that Julio Cascante, sidelined toward the end of the 2-0 loss against San Diego FC on Saturday with a hamstring injury, won't be available.

Myrto Uzuni is off on international duty this weekend, though given his recent run of form in his last two matches — 30 touches, three shot-creating actions, no goal-creating actions and just a single shot (not on target), while logging 158 largely anonymous minutes — he's very nearly been on international break over the past week.

But all other Verdes should be ready to go on Saturday, including Brendan Hines-Ike, who was out for "personal reasons" that Estévez will leave up to the player to disclose, meaning that we might get a chance to ask on June 14 after the home match against Red Bulls, when the moment will already clearly have passed.

Estévez also talked about struggles in getting Mikkel Desler and Robert Taylor as many minutes as he'd have liked toward the tail end of the month.

"The issue that Mikkel had is he had a very long injury, and we didn't have time to give proper real trainings," he explained. "We tried mixing [him] up with the second team, playing with them, scrimmages during the week. Dani [Pereira] was different because he didn't miss that much, and with the training that we prepared and the scrimmages with the second team, we felt that he was ready to but now it's different. We think they can be ready.

"Robert, it was a little bit different situation," he continued. "Even though that it wasn't a very long injury, he wasn't playing with Miami, and then he was just playing with us 30 minutes. And it's more precautionary for him to build his minutes towards the season as we progress, but going forward now, is that still the case?"

What's at stake on Saturday? Should Austin not win, it becomes the team's longest regular-season winless streak – longer than the two separate eight-match struggles in the 2023 season when Alex Ring was deployed as a because-we-have-to center back, and longer than the eight-match winless season dropped into an expansion campaign that bore the fruits of a roster built in the midst of a pandemic by Claudio Reyna – who hasn't had a job in soccer (at least, one we know of) since parting ways with Austin FC in 2023, for reasons.

Tuti, take me away

I'm not the only Austin FC media person who has expressed cynicism about this team's fortunes in recent weeks. I offered some reasons to believe on Sunday morning, but I was also writing those in the midst of a very nice San Antonio hotel getaway that I enjoyed in spite of spending several hours of it watching a Verde team that's become increasingly less fun to watch over the past two months – unless the Open Cup is involved.

Let me give you something fun to watch.

To quote Dora the Explorer, when she breaks the fourth wall at the end of every episode and asks people what they liked about the episode, but referring to the totality of this video, "I liked that, too!"

As with many highlight videos of this ilk, this Kervin "Tuti" Andrade video praising him as "The Little Magician" is more to highlight the potential that could be rather than getting irrationally excited about what's already there. Yes, you have some bangers and assists included, as well as some plays that don't quite come off — but at least his ideas are clear and his intent is encouraging.

Also, if you don't have 10 minutes to invest in that video, just watch this clip of a recent golazo for Venezuela, or the assist he had at Q2 Stadium on Eric Ramírez's goal (Yes, he's Dani Pereira's sometimes-teammate on the Vinotinto; we'll get to that in a bit.)

Andrade's just 20, meaning he's make-ready for a Under 22 Inititative (U22) place on the Austin roster — which would allow sporting director Rodolfo Borrell to meet Fortaleza's transfer fee to pry him from Brazil, pay him commensurate to his potential, and not have to worry about finding TAM or a DP spot for a few years per the club-friendly U22 parameters, provided he fulfills that potential. (Hopefully, if that happens, you play that situation better than the Galaxy when Dejan Joveljić aged out of his U22 roster designation and they had to move him to SKC, but we're getting way ahead of ourselves here.)

We all know, of course, it's very possible that the Andrade rumor is just something that a content creator floated for clout, or something hatched by Andrade's agent. But given that Tuti hasn't had a ton of minutes at Fortaleza, and given Austin's desperation for creative midfield play, maybe he would be remarkable given a chance to get regular minutes in MLS.

Here's a spider chart that might excite you and horrify you all at once.

Two things jump out to me, even though it's quite a small sample size.

First, the shot-creating actions and assist numbers are at the top end of the chart. Those stack up very respectably against MLS, Liga MX, and Brazil top-flight players, plus others in respectable European leagues — as this is the Men's Next 14 Competitions category his stats are being measured by.

But look at those non-penalty goal numbers! Being in the first percentile is ... fine if you're passing to players who are scoring. But you'd still expect enough chances to come your way so you're not the worst at scoring, which is what this chart says.

Would you welcome San Jose's Cristian Espinoza on this Austin team right now? Sure you would! Look how the two line up.

And here are a couple of comparisons a little closer to home; aka the most creative midfielders Verde are currently deploying.

And this one.

Andrade's not getting a ton of playing time right now, which is part of what's driving the rumor, so there's not a lot of data to parse.

But at Thursday's media availability, Pereira had a lot of nice things to say about Andrade. In response to We Are Austin TV's question, he praised Andrade for his vision and stamina and ability to play multiple positions, including forward, winger, or should Verde somehow ever have a need for this, the 10.

Perhaps it's a little too premature to be thinking about the transfer window and what lies ahead. But it's definitely more fun to look ahead to July than to look back at May.

And it could continue to be that should June give us what May gave us.

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