Austin FC head coach Nico Estévez did downplay what was arguably the best scoring performance of the year on Wednesday night. Brandon Vázquez's moment of individual brilliance, Osman Bukari's successful penalty kick, and then Bukari's possession leading to a deft assist to a clinical finish by Ilie Sánchez.
He also downplayed the potential of the 3-1 win over Houston in Open Cup play — putting Verde just three wins from its first non-Copa Tejas trophy — portending future positive performances, noting that the team has played better with less joyful outcomes, again returning to his chestnut that "sometimes, soccer is a lie."
But in a quick three snapshots from last night, there are perhaps some signs that a challenging May has been made better by the team reaching this milestone – the farthest they've gotten in a tournament to date – and that Verde will come out better for having endured it in the second half of the regular season, which starts in June.
On the designated player forward rotation
"We knew Brandon couldn't go 90 minutes because he ended up in the last league game with a knock in the knee, and then he's been struggling to recover, and we knew that he was going to be subbed," Estévez said. "And then in order to not lose potential, in order to have a strong team at the end of the game, we wanted to bring in Myrto, who could play in different positions from the bench. And also we knew that if we are winning, that Houston is a team that goes into the attack, and then we could find spaces for him as as we did. And so he helped us a lot, because we needed some energy from his side."
"Everyone did a really good job," he continued. "I told the guys, I'm very proud of the players that came, everyone that came from the bench today gave us the extra energy that we needed, even though it was a moment that we were suffering and we didn't have much of the ball. They did an amazing job to keep the score, and also, in some moments, we could score more goals with some good counterattacks."
On multiple scorers getting involved
"I think good teams are those that there are multiple players that score goals, and we only focus on the forwards, and it's not fair," said Estévez, reminiscent of some Josh Wolff observations in 2024, albeit when Austin FC didn't have a player of Vazquez's caliber leading the line. "It's true that they have to do it. But I think the best teams are the ones that have more than two or three players that score goals, set pieces for the center backs, and [Guilherme] Biro, that he already scored a goal in this [campaign], this shooting that [Besard] Šabović had a couple of times. Some of them will go to goal and arriving like Ilie did today, having that desire to score and to finish the game."
Ilie, on his team's offensive progression
"The quality that we have individually, especially on top, we cannot allow ourselves to not take advantage of that," the captain said, as "And that comes first individually. We need to have that desire, that urgency, that willingness to do things well, but also it comes with teamwork and patterns that we can adjust, we can improve, in the final third. The better we play — with the ball, without the ball — the clearer the chances will be for our forwards to then take advantage of their quality. It's as simple as that, but football is simple, right? So the more we can focus on ourselves and work towards that, the better we'll be to get the results that we all want here. That's the main goal that we have here."
Incidentally, this quote was part of an eight-minute Socratic lecture from Professor Ilie, standing out as one of my favorite moments of media-player interaction in my seven-plus years of covering Austin FC (from the time it was just a twinkle in Anthony Precourt's eye). It was so great that me and my partner in Verde All Day, Moisés Chiullán, immediately recorded a quick intro and outro (at midnight!) and got it up as a post-match Emergency Podcast, embedded here for you to take in what we took in.
Definitely more reflections to come from this win and what Verde representatives said after. (And, in a hasty update we just did here shortly after publishing, we learned Austin will travel to San Jose either July 8 or 9, with the potential to host both the semifinal (should Chicago beat Minnesota in that quarterfinal match) and the final.)
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.
Austin FC head coach Nico Estévez did downplay what was arguably the best scoring performance of the year on Wednesday night. Brandon Vázquez's moment of individual brilliance, Osman Bukari's successful penalty kick, and then Bukari's possession leading to a deft assist to a clinical finish by Ilie Sánchez.
He also downplayed the potential of the 3-1 win over Houston in Open Cup play — putting Verde just three wins from its first non-Copa Tejas trophy — portending future positive performances, noting that the team has played better with less joyful outcomes, again returning to his chestnut that "sometimes, soccer is a lie."
But in a quick three snapshots from last night, there are perhaps some signs that a challenging May has been made better by the team reaching this milestone – the farthest they've gotten in a tournament to date – and that Verde will come out better for having endured it in the second half of the regular season, which starts in June.
On the designated player forward rotation
"We knew Brandon couldn't go 90 minutes because he ended up in the last league game with a knock in the knee, and then he's been struggling to recover, and we knew that he was going to be subbed," Estévez said. "And then in order to not lose potential, in order to have a strong team at the end of the game, we wanted to bring in Myrto, who could play in different positions from the bench. And also we knew that if we are winning, that Houston is a team that goes into the attack, and then we could find spaces for him as as we did. And so he helped us a lot, because we needed some energy from his side."
"Everyone did a really good job," he continued. "I told the guys, I'm very proud of the players that came, everyone that came from the bench today gave us the extra energy that we needed, even though it was a moment that we were suffering and we didn't have much of the ball. They did an amazing job to keep the score, and also, in some moments, we could score more goals with some good counterattacks."
On multiple scorers getting involved
"I think good teams are those that there are multiple players that score goals, and we only focus on the forwards, and it's not fair," said Estévez, reminiscent of some Josh Wolff observations in 2024, albeit when Austin FC didn't have a player of Vazquez's caliber leading the line. "It's true that they have to do it. But I think the best teams are the ones that have more than two or three players that score goals, set pieces for the center backs, and [Guilherme] Biro, that he already scored a goal in this [campaign], this shooting that [Besard] Šabović had a couple of times. Some of them will go to goal and arriving like Ilie did today, having that desire to score and to finish the game."
Ilie, on his team's offensive progression
"The quality that we have individually, especially on top, we cannot allow ourselves to not take advantage of that," the captain said, as "And that comes first individually. We need to have that desire, that urgency, that willingness to do things well, but also it comes with teamwork and patterns that we can adjust, we can improve, in the final third. The better we play — with the ball, without the ball — the clearer the chances will be for our forwards to then take advantage of their quality. It's as simple as that, but football is simple, right? So the more we can focus on ourselves and work towards that, the better we'll be to get the results that we all want here. That's the main goal that we have here."
Incidentally, this quote was part of an eight-minute Socratic lecture from Professor Ilie, standing out as one of my favorite moments of media-player interaction in my seven-plus years of covering Austin FC (from the time it was just a twinkle in Anthony Precourt's eye). It was so great that me and my partner in Verde All Day, Moisés Chiullán, immediately recorded a quick intro and outro (at midnight!) and got it up as a post-match Emergency Podcast, embedded here for you to take in what we took in.
Definitely more reflections to come from this win and what Verde representatives said after. (And, in a hasty update we just did here shortly after publishing, we learned Austin will travel to San Jose either July 8 or 9, with the potential to host both the semifinal (should Chicago beat Minnesota in that quarterfinal match) and the final.)
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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