Following Austin FC's 2-1 win over Sporting Kansas City on Saturday night to keep its increasingly slimming playoff hopes alive, interim head coach Davy Arnaud — in the city where he forged his reputation as a 10-year player — praised his team for staying in the fight.
"You saw exactly that resiliency," he said. "You saw grit, determination, all of the above."
"At the pregame meeting today, I said to the guys, our training yesterday to me was the best day-before-a-game training that we've had probably since the summer. I think it speaks a lot about them," he continued. "With a team with four games left, and obviously in a difficult position where we feel we need to win every single game, there would be other groups I think that probably would not approach it with the same intensity and feel like things were too tough to overcome.
"These guys have gone the opposite way, and they showed that in the training that we had yesterday: The intensity, the concentration ... you could feel that they were really determined to come out and have a good performance and win the game tonight.
"And then going down a goal, you could have seen the same thing," he continued. "I think another team, in another moment, conceding the first goal, would have just said, 'Okay, that's going to be it.' But they didn't. We went the other direction. They dug in, and you could feel once we got the first goal that the second goal was going to come. And, yeah, I'm proud of them for for their response. It's a big credit to them and who they are."
Similarly, Myrto Uzuni, who extended the meaningful portion of Verde's season with two goals, indicated the team is bought in despite the table math bleakness they're facing down.
"Everyone knows we are not doing great, but we are there," he said. "We are alive; the hope is there. We're going to try 'til the end because we represent one city, one jersey, so we have to give everything. This is our job, and in the end, we do our calculation. But we're going to give everything ... we're going to try everything. This is the best motivation, how we have to motivate and go to win the next game against RSL."
While he did acknowledge the individual achievement that got him to nine goals on the season (and 13 in all comps, factoring in his Leagues Cup Golden Boot-winning performance), he also made clear it's in service to the team.
"I'm so happy about my goals," he said. "My performance in the last three games, I have three goals and one assist ... but today, the most important [thing] was to win a game, not me scoring."
