Austin FC has never won a competitive soccer match at Frisco's Toyota Stadium. That trend continued on Saturday night, as the visitors lost 2-0 following an early Petar Musa goal and an early second-half goal from Bernard Kamungo.
Musa got the opener just 90 seconds into the match, getting a loose ball headed away from Nicolás Dubersarsky, playing a give-and-go with second striker Logan Farrington, and weaving through the Verde defense to emerge alone with the ball to fire past Austin FC goalkeeper Brad Stuver to grab the lead.
Bringing the away Montréal match to mind, FC Dallas got the first eight shots of the match before Verde finally managed one in the 30th minute via a Owen Wolff free kick that found Guilherme Biro's head.
Luckily, though, it was only 1-0 at halftime, and Verde met the challenge after halftime by ... not subbing in a single player, not even including Myrto Uzuni as the match was calling out for.
Less than four minutes after the break, FCD struck for its second, with Jacob Jackson snuffing out an Austin attack, hoofing a half-field pass to Patrickson Delgado, who lobbed a pass to Kamungo for the goal.
Just past the hour mark, Austin FC head coach Nico Estévez made a somewhat confounding triple sub, keeping in an ineffective Jáder Obrian, but swapping out Osman Bukari, Diego Rubio, and Nicolás Dubersarsky for Myrto Uzuni, Besard Šabović, and Robert Taylor.
In the 72nd minute, Estévez expended his remaining subs on Žan Kolmanič (for Biro) and CJ Fodrey (last week's hero) for Owen Wolff (hero of the whole last stretch of the season).
In minute 88, it appeared Musa sprung Anderson Julio forward for his fifth goal of the year, but Julio was ruled offside as a momentary respite for a Verde side beaten down by circumstance.
But Verde wasn't able to do anything to chip away at the lead, leading to the shutout.
Worst Verde moment (that wasn't a goal allowed)
Dani Pereira got a completely needless yellow card in the 38th minute, shoving Farrington, who was beating him one-on-one, but doing so about 35 yards from goal.
One thing you might have missed
FC Dallas head coach Eric Quill was wearing a yellow ribbon — ostensibly for the 9/11 attacks. (In 2001, Quill was playing for the Tampa Bay Mutiny, in their last season before being contracted. Quill would resurface in Kansas City the next season, becoming Davy Arnaud's teammate. He'd get forward competition in 2003 in the form of Josh Wolff.)
One nerdy tidbit
FCD had nearly 70% possession in the first half.
Where this fits into the season's narrative
Austin FC had the chance to get its second-best season ever based on points, and remain viable for surpassing its 2022 total. Not only did Verde not do that, they let its rival back into the playoff hunt, having had a chance to all but officially dispatch that rival. Maybe this is just a blip ahead of the very important match in four nights?
A question we have heading into the press conference
Why did this match look so similar to the Montréal loss, when we were led to believe the Montréal loss was an alarming outlier?
Austin FC has never won a competitive soccer match at Frisco's Toyota Stadium. That trend continued on Saturday night, as the visitors lost 2-0 following an early Petar Musa goal and an early second-half goal from Bernard Kamungo.
Musa got the opener just 90 seconds into the match, getting a loose ball headed away from Nicolás Dubersarsky, playing a give-and-go with second striker Logan Farrington, and weaving through the Verde defense to emerge alone with the ball to fire past Austin FC goalkeeper Brad Stuver to grab the lead.
Bringing the away Montréal match to mind, FC Dallas got the first eight shots of the match before Verde finally managed one in the 30th minute via a Owen Wolff free kick that found Guilherme Biro's head.
Luckily, though, it was only 1-0 at halftime, and Verde met the challenge after halftime by ... not subbing in a single player, not even including Myrto Uzuni as the match was calling out for.
Less than four minutes after the break, FCD struck for its second, with Jacob Jackson snuffing out an Austin attack, hoofing a half-field pass to Patrickson Delgado, who lobbed a pass to Kamungo for the goal.
Just past the hour mark, Austin FC head coach Nico Estévez made a somewhat confounding triple sub, keeping in an ineffective Jáder Obrian, but swapping out Osman Bukari, Diego Rubio, and Nicolás Dubersarsky for Myrto Uzuni, Besard Šabović, and Robert Taylor.
In the 72nd minute, Estévez expended his remaining subs on Žan Kolmanič (for Biro) and CJ Fodrey (last week's hero) for Owen Wolff (hero of the whole last stretch of the season).
In minute 88, it appeared Musa sprung Anderson Julio forward for his fifth goal of the year, but Julio was ruled offside as a momentary respite for a Verde side beaten down by circumstance.
But Verde wasn't able to do anything to chip away at the lead, leading to the shutout.
Worst Verde moment (that wasn't a goal allowed)
Dani Pereira got a completely needless yellow card in the 38th minute, shoving Farrington, who was beating him one-on-one, but doing so about 35 yards from goal.
One thing you might have missed
FC Dallas head coach Eric Quill was wearing a yellow ribbon — ostensibly for the 9/11 attacks. (In 2001, Quill was playing for the Tampa Bay Mutiny, in their last season before being contracted. Quill would resurface in Kansas City the next season, becoming Davy Arnaud's teammate. He'd get forward competition in 2003 in the form of Josh Wolff.)
One nerdy tidbit
FCD had nearly 70% possession in the first half.
Where this fits into the season's narrative
Austin FC had the chance to get its second-best season ever based on points, and remain viable for surpassing its 2022 total. Not only did Verde not do that, they let its rival back into the playoff hunt, having had a chance to all but officially dispatch that rival. Maybe this is just a blip ahead of the very important match in four nights?
A question we have heading into the press conference
Why did this match look so similar to the Montréal loss, when we were led to believe the Montréal loss was an alarming outlier?
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