'They're hungry to win': Reveling in a PK win against América (and unclear where Leagues Cup takes Austin FC)
Austin FC had a historic PK win and will go to a yet-unknown destination in the Leagues Cup quarterfinals. But interim head coach Davy Arnaud is also looking for wins in MLS.
Austin FC interim head coach Davy Arnaud wants fans who showed out for the team at Q2 Stadium on Thursday — though obscured by a thicket of yellow-clad Club América fans — to know that he saw and heard them.
"There were a lot of América fans, but there were a lot of Austin FC fans also, and the Austin FC fans were just as loud and just as into the game, and we could feel them," he said. "Obviously, there were more probably traveling fans than we're normally used to, but the job that our fans did tonight, man, that inspires you. It inspires the team and inspires the group and inspires the whole club ... I thought they did a great job tonight."
That was especially evident in the penalty kick shootout following the 1-1 draw — a hallmark of MLS Next Pro that's been adopted by Leagues Cup to add a layer of literal tiebreaking to the complex set of tiebreakers that allow organizers to winnow two groups of 18 teams into an eight-team quarterfinal pitting four Liga MX teams against MLS opponents.
With two wins and a penalty kick win, Verde have transformed the season narrative from 14th in the West and having fired a head coach and sporting director midseason to a team that's three wins (and here, PK wins will count as wins) from the first silverware[[1]] in Austin FC's history.
Of course, come Sunday, the league competition resumes, and FC Dallas' presence will remind everyone there's still a hill to climb to get to the annual baseline goal of making the playoffs that all MLS teams share.
"This is great, and we love it, and we're so excited," Arnaud said about what happened Thursday night. "But we have more to do, and we need to have that mindset, and these guys will, man. You can see they're hungry. They're hungry to win. They're hungry to win, and they're in a good way right now. And we want to keep that going."
Though it was a true team effort in the PK sequence, with all six Verde players making their penalty kicks and goalkeeper Brad Stuver getting a save to see it out, it was Myrto Uzuni who got the team to this place, scoring in the 67th minute. For the second straight match, a Liga MX opponent inexplicably left him wide open toward the edge of the box, allowing him to uncork the sort of shot that mocks a goalkeeper going in.
"The first thing that I see Myrto do, and the thing that he always does, is Myrto leaves everything on the field," Arnaud said. "He gives absolutely everything. He runs. He covers ground, and he's a DP, right? He's a goal scorer. But the first thing I think about Myrto is the work that he does for the team. You see him covering for people. We talk about cover to help when someone needs help. You see him down recovering balls for us, running past guys to get down. His desire to win is is super high. So that's the first thing I think about with him.
"The role he's playing now is one of these attacking midfielders," he continued. "I think it suits him well. He's a late arriver in the box. He does that well. He receives the ball well between lines and dribbles and drives the last lines really well, and I think you see his quality in the box. So when he gets chances in and around the box, he can finish, and he's finishing well right now."
Asked to expound further, Arnaud was only too happy to oblige.
"I love Myrto; I do," he said. "I love the way that he plays, and I love his intensity ... he can be fiery at times, and he wears his heart on his sleeve. It's a passionate game ... to play at a high level, you've got to be on that line, and he is. And he can disagree with certain things or not be happy with his performance, but he never doesn't work for the team ever. And I have so much time for that. I have so much respect for that, because to me, there's nothing more important."
Stuver also shared admiration for the Albanian.
"When you come in as a DP, and you come in as the record signing money-wise, there's a lot of expectations from you from the minute that you touch down," Stuver said. "Obviously, we've had some disappointing signings in the past ... so fans are already kind of prone to seeing the worst of things and not giving time for fans to gel and players to live up to what they're capable of.
"So Myrto is a guy that feeds on confidence," he added. "He's a guy that feeds on belief, and so this leads to ... you can see that the belief that the guys are giving him, the belief the coaching staff is giving him, is giving him confidence to go into these performances, and obviously he's rewarding us. He's rewarding himself with the goals that he wants to score ... He's all about just having that belief in him, and for us, it's just about feeding him and knowing that to get the best out of him, he's going to work his ass off for us no matter what, and to get the best out of him, we just have to know the right way to motivate him."
'You just saw the whole team lift'
Speaking of players with newfound confidence, Arnaud saw Besard Šabović's entry into the match as a turning point, coming 12 minutes after Austin went down 1-0 on a fluky own goal in which a Kevin Álvarez cross pinged off Jon Gallagher's heel and into goal. (Gallagher, asked about the play post-match, questioned whether the play would stand as an own goal against him, but as of this morning, the MLS site had not amended the designation.)
"You saw Šabović tonight," Arnaud said. "He was disappointed he wasn't in the lineup. It's a big game, but I talked about this after in the locker room — the way that he came into the game tonight in the second half. He injected energy, and you just saw the whole team lift when he came in the game tonight. And that's what we need — guys, when they come into games, whether they're starting or not, to come in and provide everything and raise the level of the group.
"Again, I think we're still ... what is our best central combination? I think we're still looking for that a little bit. We're trying out some different things. I think you see guys that can play lower and they can also play higher. So we're still kind of toying with some of that stuff, but whoever it is, it doesn't change the roles and the responsibilities, right? So we're consistent in that. So no matter who it is, they have the same job."
Arnaud acknowledged that Club América provided challenges that made for a trickier game state throughout, but was buoyed that his team managed it.
"It's a difficult game against a good opponent," he assessed. "They're very good. They had a ton of individual quality. They cause real problems. They press after they lose the ball really well. It's not always going to be perfect, and in these types of games, you have to show that you can win games in different ways. And I thought tonight we had some good moments being us with the ball, and I thought we had some moments where we just had to grind it out. We had to defend. We had to block shots. We had to defend corners in the right moments. We had to have big players make big plays like Myrto did.
"I thought you saw, as the second half went on, once we kind of slowed the game down a little bit, we allowed ourselves to get more of a rhythm. We gained a little bit of territory where we could move up and actually set up the attack where we didn't lose the ball quickly after we regained it. I think that helped us, and I think we saw once we did that, the game went more as we would want it to."
Then, he explained his ebullient mood.
"I'm smiling because I'm so happy. I'm so happy for the players. I'm so happy for them ... I'm happy for everybody, the club and the fans. But I'm so happy for the guys in the locker room. Not everyone sees what these guys do every day and the work that they put in and how they buy in and how they challenge each other. They take it on and they showed real personality tonight."
The quarterfinal quandary
We know a few things about the 2026 edition of Leagues Cup, and we have some level of clarity, but are also left scratching our heads about some of it as well.
We know that Austin FC plays Toluca sometime between Aug. 25 and 27, with dates and times to be announced by organizers. In a normal tournament world, Austin, as the No. 2 seed from the MLS half, would host Liga MX No. 3 Toluca and then face the No. 3 MLS-No. 2 Liga MX winner (Columbus-América) in the semifinal.
But no.
Here's the bracket:
As you can see, Austin's paired with Liga MX No. 1 and MLS No. 4 RSL, meaning that a rematch against América or an origin story showdown against the Crew in the final is a possibility. Alternatively, Austin could wind up in a final against Chicago and former head coach Nico Estévez, who is now a Gregg Berhalter assistant.
The complication for the quarterfinal site has to do with this part of the 67-page rulebook.
Toluca FC (Liga MX Champions) will have host privileges through the Semifinal other than for Matches against Inter Miami CF in the Final or Third-Place Match.
The question — which a club spokesperson said would be settled between today and Monday — is: What does "host privileges" mean? It seems that, taking that literally, being the higher seed means nothing[[2]] and Austin FC will need to trek to Toluca, sitting at 8,700 feet of elevation, to a stadium nicknamed "The Chocolate Box" or "Hell."
It could also mean — possibly ensuring the best crowd and smoothest organizational sailing — that the match is played in Austin and Toluca is the home team in the way that América was Thursday night. (Toluca does have a fan base in the U.S., though not on América's level.)
The third possibility — unconfirmed, but shared by a source who wished to remain off the record — is that Toluca hosts in a neutral-site U.S. stadium. While I can't share details at present on how this will be determined, the actual location for the match could surprise and aggrieve you.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts.
[[1]] I am aware that Copa Tejas exists, but no, just no. Also, MLS Next Cup, but we're talking about what the first team earned.
[[2]] It was LAFC's higher seed entering the 2024 tournament which allowed it to host the Round of 32 match against an Austin FC team that had just won its group by beating Monterrey and Pumas. Leagues Cup is weird.
An own goal followed by a Myrto Uzuni goal led to a memorable PK sequence in an unusually unhabitable North End of Q2 Stadium. That gives Verde a second opportunity in as many years to win a cup competition.
Club América has looked formidable in its first two Leagues Cup matches — if you're just looking at the scoreline. However, there are some cracks if you dig in further, and that could benefit Austin FC on Thursday night.
Confused about what needs to happen for Austin FC to get into the 2026 Leagues Cup knockout rounds? You're not alone. Let us try to break it down for you.
Winning 3-0 and setting up a marquee match to get to the final eight of a tournament are positives Austin FC can take away from Sunday's match. But Davy Arnaud thinks there's still work to be done with his new style of play.
Austin FC interim head coach Davy Arnaud wants fans who showed out for the team at Q2 Stadium on Thursday — though obscured by a thicket of yellow-clad Club América fans — to know that he saw and heard them.
"There were a lot of América fans, but there were a lot of Austin FC fans also, and the Austin FC fans were just as loud and just as into the game, and we could feel them," he said. "Obviously, there were more probably traveling fans than we're normally used to, but the job that our fans did tonight, man, that inspires you. It inspires the team and inspires the group and inspires the whole club ... I thought they did a great job tonight."
That was especially evident in the penalty kick shootout following the 1-1 draw — a hallmark of MLS Next Pro that's been adopted by Leagues Cup to add a layer of literal tiebreaking to the complex set of tiebreakers that allow organizers to winnow two groups of 18 teams into an eight-team quarterfinal pitting four Liga MX teams against MLS opponents.
With two wins and a penalty kick win, Verde have transformed the season narrative from 14th in the West and having fired a head coach and sporting director midseason to a team that's three wins (and here, PK wins will count as wins) from the first silverware[[1]] in Austin FC's history.
Of course, come Sunday, the league competition resumes, and FC Dallas' presence will remind everyone there's still a hill to climb to get to the annual baseline goal of making the playoffs that all MLS teams share.
"This is great, and we love it, and we're so excited," Arnaud said about what happened Thursday night. "But we have more to do, and we need to have that mindset, and these guys will, man. You can see they're hungry. They're hungry to win. They're hungry to win, and they're in a good way right now. And we want to keep that going."
Uz-ing confidence
Though it was a true team effort in the PK sequence, with all six Verde players making their penalty kicks and goalkeeper Brad Stuver getting a save to see it out, it was Myrto Uzuni who got the team to this place, scoring in the 67th minute. For the second straight match, a Liga MX opponent inexplicably left him wide open toward the edge of the box, allowing him to uncork the sort of shot that mocks a goalkeeper going in.
"The first thing that I see Myrto do, and the thing that he always does, is Myrto leaves everything on the field," Arnaud said. "He gives absolutely everything. He runs. He covers ground, and he's a DP, right? He's a goal scorer. But the first thing I think about Myrto is the work that he does for the team. You see him covering for people. We talk about cover to help when someone needs help. You see him down recovering balls for us, running past guys to get down. His desire to win is is super high. So that's the first thing I think about with him.
"The role he's playing now is one of these attacking midfielders," he continued. "I think it suits him well. He's a late arriver in the box. He does that well. He receives the ball well between lines and dribbles and drives the last lines really well, and I think you see his quality in the box. So when he gets chances in and around the box, he can finish, and he's finishing well right now."
Asked to expound further, Arnaud was only too happy to oblige.
"I love Myrto; I do," he said. "I love the way that he plays, and I love his intensity ... he can be fiery at times, and he wears his heart on his sleeve. It's a passionate game ... to play at a high level, you've got to be on that line, and he is. And he can disagree with certain things or not be happy with his performance, but he never doesn't work for the team ever. And I have so much time for that. I have so much respect for that, because to me, there's nothing more important."
Stuver also shared admiration for the Albanian.
"When you come in as a DP, and you come in as the record signing money-wise, there's a lot of expectations from you from the minute that you touch down," Stuver said. "Obviously, we've had some disappointing signings in the past ... so fans are already kind of prone to seeing the worst of things and not giving time for fans to gel and players to live up to what they're capable of.
"So Myrto is a guy that feeds on confidence," he added. "He's a guy that feeds on belief, and so this leads to ... you can see that the belief that the guys are giving him, the belief the coaching staff is giving him, is giving him confidence to go into these performances, and obviously he's rewarding us. He's rewarding himself with the goals that he wants to score ... He's all about just having that belief in him, and for us, it's just about feeding him and knowing that to get the best out of him, he's going to work his ass off for us no matter what, and to get the best out of him, we just have to know the right way to motivate him."
'You just saw the whole team lift'
Speaking of players with newfound confidence, Arnaud saw Besard Šabović's entry into the match as a turning point, coming 12 minutes after Austin went down 1-0 on a fluky own goal in which a Kevin Álvarez cross pinged off Jon Gallagher's heel and into goal. (Gallagher, asked about the play post-match, questioned whether the play would stand as an own goal against him, but as of this morning, the MLS site had not amended the designation.)
"You saw Šabović tonight," Arnaud said. "He was disappointed he wasn't in the lineup. It's a big game, but I talked about this after in the locker room — the way that he came into the game tonight in the second half. He injected energy, and you just saw the whole team lift when he came in the game tonight. And that's what we need — guys, when they come into games, whether they're starting or not, to come in and provide everything and raise the level of the group.
"Again, I think we're still ... what is our best central combination? I think we're still looking for that a little bit. We're trying out some different things. I think you see guys that can play lower and they can also play higher. So we're still kind of toying with some of that stuff, but whoever it is, it doesn't change the roles and the responsibilities, right? So we're consistent in that. So no matter who it is, they have the same job."
Arnaud acknowledged that Club América provided challenges that made for a trickier game state throughout, but was buoyed that his team managed it.
"It's a difficult game against a good opponent," he assessed. "They're very good. They had a ton of individual quality. They cause real problems. They press after they lose the ball really well. It's not always going to be perfect, and in these types of games, you have to show that you can win games in different ways. And I thought tonight we had some good moments being us with the ball, and I thought we had some moments where we just had to grind it out. We had to defend. We had to block shots. We had to defend corners in the right moments. We had to have big players make big plays like Myrto did.
"I thought you saw, as the second half went on, once we kind of slowed the game down a little bit, we allowed ourselves to get more of a rhythm. We gained a little bit of territory where we could move up and actually set up the attack where we didn't lose the ball quickly after we regained it. I think that helped us, and I think we saw once we did that, the game went more as we would want it to."
Then, he explained his ebullient mood.
"I'm smiling because I'm so happy. I'm so happy for the players. I'm so happy for them ... I'm happy for everybody, the club and the fans. But I'm so happy for the guys in the locker room. Not everyone sees what these guys do every day and the work that they put in and how they buy in and how they challenge each other. They take it on and they showed real personality tonight."
The quarterfinal quandary
We know a few things about the 2026 edition of Leagues Cup, and we have some level of clarity, but are also left scratching our heads about some of it as well.
We know that Austin FC plays Toluca sometime between Aug. 25 and 27, with dates and times to be announced by organizers. In a normal tournament world, Austin, as the No. 2 seed from the MLS half, would host Liga MX No. 3 Toluca and then face the No. 3 MLS-No. 2 Liga MX winner (Columbus-América) in the semifinal.
But no.
Here's the bracket:
As you can see, Austin's paired with Liga MX No. 1 and MLS No. 4 RSL, meaning that a rematch against América or an origin story showdown against the Crew in the final is a possibility. Alternatively, Austin could wind up in a final against Chicago and former head coach Nico Estévez, who is now a Gregg Berhalter assistant.
The complication for the quarterfinal site has to do with this part of the 67-page rulebook.
Toluca FC (Liga MX Champions) will have host privileges through the Semifinal other than for Matches against Inter Miami CF in the Final or Third-Place Match.
The question — which a club spokesperson said would be settled between today and Monday — is: What does "host privileges" mean? It seems that, taking that literally, being the higher seed means nothing[[2]] and Austin FC will need to trek to Toluca, sitting at 8,700 feet of elevation, to a stadium nicknamed "The Chocolate Box" or "Hell."
It could also mean — possibly ensuring the best crowd and smoothest organizational sailing — that the match is played in Austin and Toluca is the home team in the way that América was Thursday night. (Toluca does have a fan base in the U.S., though not on América's level.)
The third possibility — unconfirmed, but shared by a source who wished to remain off the record — is that Toluca hosts in a neutral-site U.S. stadium. While I can't share details at present on how this will be determined, the actual location for the match could surprise and aggrieve you.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts.
[[1]] I am aware that Copa Tejas exists, but no, just no. Also, MLS Next Cup, but we're talking about what the first team earned.
[[2]] It was LAFC's higher seed entering the 2024 tournament which allowed it to host the Round of 32 match against an Austin FC team that had just won its group by beating Monterrey and Pumas. Leagues Cup is weird.
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