In "Song of Myself, 51," American poet Walt Whitman penned one of his most famous lines, "I am large, I contain multitudes."
In Saturday night's press conference following Austin FC's humbling 2-1 loss to Sporting Kansas City, Spanish soccer coach Nico Estévez — for now, at least, Verde's head coach — also demonstrated that he contains multitudes while holding court for just seconds shy of a full half-hour.
He was, as he's been in recent weeks through three of the club's worst losses in club history, frustrated by the results and by elements of game play that cost his team precious points, yet also asserting what went well in those ultimately fruitless matches.
He was also a historian in making a case about sticking with a coach through adversity, delving into the stories of two Valencia coaches — Rafael Benitez, who vaulted from his 2001-2004 tenure there to coach Liverpool, and Héctor Cúper, his predecessor — to underscore the message, "Decision-makers must not act impulsively; they need to analyze the situation objectively."
And ultimately — along with defining himself to be different than his predecessor, in bringing the club to its first final — he was resolute in wanting to turn the season around despite the most recent pair of losses undoing the progress of the preceding three-match unbeaten streak, leaving Verde back on one point per game and on pace to finish the season on 34 points, just three better than in their inaugural season.
