Austin FC's 3-0 loss to St. Louis City SC on Saturday is now in the books — and is, perhaps mercifully, the last match we'll see Verde play for two months.
With that loss, interim head coach Davy Arnaud presided over the final phase of a 10-1 three-match run that claimed a head coach and sporting director and sunk Verde to 14th in the West, as just one of six MLS teams with three or fewer wins.
Despite the adversity, Arnaud liked what he saw from his squad — despite the scoring starting with an own goal and ending with a poorly-defended goal involving an unchecked runner, both on Guilherme Biro.
In what became his final press conference last week, now-former head coach Nico Estévez spoke of motivation needing to come from the players themselves, aware of the club they represent, and Arnaud said he saw that in them.
"It's been a tough week, it's obviously an emotional week, but in terms of motivation, and from day one of training, those guys worked extremely hard, they were motivated every day in training," he said. "I'm really happy with the week of work ... if you watch the first 35 to 40 minutes of the game before the first goal, I think you see a collective group that's that's given everything, sticking to the plan ... there [are] certain things that we absolutely could have done better, but I think we're at a moment right now, and I talked to the players after ... especially when you're going through a bad run of form, bad run of results, the confidence can teeter a little bit, right?"
He said that at halftime, he made some adjustments and thought the squad responded well there, despite St. Louis scoring inside of 12 minutes after the restart.
"The intensity, the attitude by the guys in the start of the second half was good," he observed. "And then ... the second goal hurts us. What I saw in the second half, after the second goal, was a group of guys that were giving everything, not necessarily in the way that we wanted to; it kind of went a little bit astray after the second goal, but I think the effort was there."
In the end, the result got him thinking about the future — as, unless he hears otherwise from ownership or a new sporting director who might come onboard in the coming weeks, he plans to reconnect with the players after their mandatory three-week break. He'd be running a second preseason camp to prepare for July 22's match hosting Seattle and what comes after that, including three Leagues Cup matches against Liga MX teams.
"I'm going to challenge these guys," he said. "The effort has to be more ... I said after the game we're going to go away and we're going to on this break and we come back ready to work, we're ready to get after it and we're going to be confident in our group and what we can do moving forward in the second half of the year."
