'It was very difficult for us': Assessing a challenging May for Austin FC (and what's next)

As it turns out, my May prediction of a 2-3-2 slog through a difficult schedule of opponents wasn't so far off.

With the 2-o loss to San Diego FC on Saturday night, Austin FC extended a winless streak to eight with one of the losses I expected, albeit to a surprisingly good expansion teams with potential All-Stars Andres Dreyer and Hirving "Chucky" Lozano showing why we very well could see them in Austin in what we can now officially dub "next month."

Had Austin managed wins rather than desultory 1-1 draws against Real Salt Lake and Atlanta United — wins that I wasn't alone in predicting — I would have had it exactly, despite the fan in me wanting the team to make the journalist in me look excessively pessimistic.

Verde held a truncated post-match press conference on Saturday night – mostly due to clock management mindfulness around noise restrictions preventing late-night flights out of San Diego, but also because there was less general appetite to talk than there might have been. While head coach Nico Estévez was mostly his typically verbose self, goalkeeper Brad Stuver was as curt, clipped, and visibly angry as Austin media's ever seen him post-match.

We have a few quotes to share followed by some silver lining observations you could use at this phase of your fandom.

'I'm not happy about the first half'

Estévez did provide some frank observations about what he saw.

"I'm not happy about the first half that we played today with the ball," he said. "Defensively, we were well-positioned. We had a good understanding on how they could punish us ... We won the ball and created some transitions, but we weren't clean enough today with the ball, and we lost the ball too early. And you could see like, if we keep the ball, we could be more dangerous against them."

"In the second half. I think it changed," he continued. "I think we started very well in the second half, dominating, putting the ball in their box. We had the Brandon [Vázquez 47th-minute] chance. We had a couple situations that we created corner kicks, free, kicks, throw-ins that ended up in their box, and we were dominating this opponent."

But then, discussing the 60th-minute goal that changed the match, he described it as "difficult," assessing, "We can defend that action better, but great for them to do that play. And after, I think we responded well, in a way that we had the ball, I think with the substitutes that we came in, we brought right away new energy, new quality. And right away we responded well, but when we were with them, and it was very difficult for us after a long month playing a lot of games. And beside that ... it was moments where we could create some dangerous plays."

I present a couple of charts from MLS Analytics that beg to differ. Note the momentum chart in the 15 minutes following halftime — sure, it's green, but it indicates only a slight bit of momentum interspersed with momentum going the other way. Also, look at the total 0.25 xG created by Austin on eight shots, all deemed poor chances per American Soccer Analytics xG metrics, vs. the great and average chances that SDFC turned into goals.

Pressed further to explain the first goal, he said, "We were a little bit higher than we planned in that play; credit for the run of Lozano and credit for the pass, and after, I think we had time to do a good job defensively. There are things there that we can do better, and how we drop and how we regain. But this team has quality. We knew that is difficult to keep them [to] zero."

I submit a screenshot of Luca de la Torre as he's receiving the ball.

This is a prime example of Verde getting caught out in transition. Prior to this, you have Jon Gallagher and Oleksandr Svatok chasing Lozano after a long ball is lofted to him from an unmarked center back. Svatok could have trusted Gallagher to handle Lozano so he could then in turn track the incoming de la Torre. In the meantime, Onni Valakari arrives into the box, with Julio Cascante nominally tracking him.

It ends with Gallagher trying to serve as a one-man wall rather than being in a place to challenge de la Torre, with Cascante moving toward de la Torre (which would leave Valakari open should a Stuver save of the de la Torre shot deflect into his range).

It's not the easiest finish for de la Torre, but it's one that the capped USMNT player can convert.

'I'm going to disagree with you'

Stuver took umbrage with the contention from one of my colleagues that Verde didn't display the mentality to win.

"I'm going to disagree with you, the fact that the team didn't want to win," he said. "We went down a player, and we were still pushing to get a tie out of that game. So I'm not exactly sure what you saw, but the first half they they controlled the ball a lot more. We know that they're a good team. They like to combine in the middle, and we didn't solve that problem well enough. And then we got out of the first half, we were tied 0-0, and then in the second half, we were able to control a little bit more of the ball, and we had a little bit more possession, and got going forward.

"We had the first couple shots on goal in the second half, and then we got caught, and then we went down a player. So even when we lost Julio [Cascante], when we were playing down a player for 15 minutes, 10 plus five extra at a time, we were still going for a tie. So I guess I'm seeing something different."

Answering my question about the recurring isolated defensive lapses that spoil otherwise bend-but-don't-break efforts, he offered, "They're a good team. They combine well, they get a lot of numbers around the ball, and they have players that are putting the ball into the back of the net. So we knew that we were going to have to have a really big defensive performance, and like I said, take away the second goal, because we were down a player, and we are pushing a lot of players forward to try and tie the game away from home.

"The second goal is just a transition goal, and we're down a player, and guys are exhausted from trying to go for the tie. But, ultimately, we need to control the ball more. We need to have a little bit more possession. We need to be smarter with our passes, and we have to be cleaner with our touches all over the field. And that'll translate to having more chances in front of goal. And we need to start putting the ball in the back of the net."

As for Estévez's halftime message, Stuver revealed, "That wasn't good enough, and it wasn't from top to bottom. We were just out of position. We weren't collecting balls, we weren't playing the correct passes, we weren't keeping the ball when we won it. We did all the hard work, and then we just give the ball right back. We were lucky to get out of the first half 0-0 and away from home. That's always a good thing. When you go into halftime and you're 0-0 and you can make adjustments, and then go into the second half, and you can see that the tide changed a little bit there. In the second half, we started getting a few more chances, but at the end of the day, we just weren't good enough as a collective."

Finally, as the cherry on top of this sh*t sundae, another of my colleagues asked Stuver to assess a May that brought no league wins and just four of 24 points.

"It fell short of our expectations," Stuver said. "We're happy that we made the quarterfinals of the Open Cup, but in league play, it fell short of expectations that we had. We wanted to go into the halfway point in a playoff position to gear us up for the second half of the season, and that didn't happen. We didn't collect enough points to be in a playoff spot. So now we have to push even harder through the summer and into the fall to make sure that we're in the playoffs toward the end of the year."

Silver lining time

Okay, enough with the sad. Let's reflect on what might give you hope heading into the second half of the season.

First off, the worst is over. Verde already have had their home-and-aways with the three top teams in the conference (Vancouver, Minnesota, and San Diego), and did manage to extract five points from the 18 possible — getting results from two home matches and the trip to Minnesota. That could make a difference come Decision Day – because, unless things dramatically change, I believe we're looking at a team that is jockeying to get into one of the last remaining playoff places.

The schedule also lightens considerably in the summer. June brings a road trip next Saturday to Colorado which is tough but not San Diego or Vancouver tough, a home match on the 14th against the Red Bulls, and then depending on how Club World Cup goes, a trip to Seattle on the 28th. That will either get postponed or, perhaps more likely given the Sounders play Botafogo, Atlético Madrid, and newly crowned Champions League victors PSG, that match comes right on the other side of that row-of-murderers group stage.

Then, Austin hosts LAFC on July 5 — provided that the Black & Gold aren't still battling through the Club World Cup they qualified for in a marathon match against Club América on Saturday night. There's already an away win against LAFC stashed in the five wins that Verde have accumulated so far this season.

It's not inconceivable that the 5-7-5 Austin could be 8-7-5 heading into that match with LAFC. (And, if that gets postponed, it likely comes on the other side of LAFC juggling Club World Cup matches starting in mid-June and Leagues Cup matches starting in late July, neither of which will burden Austin.)

We also don't know yet what the summer transfer window has in store. Certainly, sporting director Rodolfo Borrell sees the need for a creative midfielder and an additional center back to replace the departed Leo Väisänen, and the former need might be on its way to being filled by rumored U22 arrival Kervin "Tuti" Andrade, a young Venezuelan international described by The Athletic last year as "a little magician of an attacking midfielder, a one-man through-ball workshop who loves to skip past defenders and also takes a mean free kick." (Yes, please.)

While I'm already seeing wishcasting from Verde All Day commenters about a new coach to replace Estévez, I find it highly unlikely that Borrell will punt on his handpicked coach after half a season.

One MLS team already has jettisoned a late 2024 hire — St. Louis City SC's Olof Mellberg — but Purina Gang sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel ... how do we say this ... puts himself out there a little more than Borrell. If you read Pfannenstiel's explanation of the decision to part ways, it's a lot more about reifying the St. Louis City way than admitting a mea culpa.

In short, don't despair. (Though I know it's not easy after a stretch like this.)

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