If Austin FC squeaks into the playoffs by a narrow margin this season — an increasingly likely scenario — everyone’s going to remember what happened on this Saturday night on Gillette Stadium’s turf.
Though an equalizer looked to be just out of Verde’s grasp in the match’s final frame, Alex Ring hoofed one final chance goalward in the fourth minute of three minutes of stoppage time. He deftly succeeded, allowing Austin FC to escape with a 2-2 away draw against the New England Revolution.
While it’s just a point gained in the overall morass that is the West standings, and while the draw does extend Austin’s winless streak to six matches in all competitions, Ring’s rocket — combined with an opportunistic Emiliano Rigoni opening goal — halted a five-match losing streak spanning either side of Verde’s Leagues Cup disappointment, and nudged them closer to the point total they’ll need to secure a playoff spot.
Wolff characterized this as the third in “three good performances for me,” noting, “I think the players probably deserved more than just a point, but it means more than a point to our guys. Again, tonight, just piggybacks what they did against Dallas, where we deserved something out of that game and performed extremely admirably, and even at home against Seattle, where you go down and you grab momentum, you tie it and you're not able to get it across the finish line, so to speak.”
“So tonight was quite deserved, he declared. “The guys worked extremely hard. You know, it's three games in a week and it'll go a long ways emotionally for our group. They know what it requires to win and compete in this league.”
