I miss my colleagues, first of all.
For the second away match in a row, I was one of just two reporters who showed up to the post-match press conference. This one was just a 1-0 loss compared to the 6-3 loss against St. Louis the time before, but this one was also a little more of a gut punch because of the way it happened.
On Wednesday, since it’s a home match, I expect more Austin media members to show up and a wider variety of voices asking questions. For now, though, thanks to Bob Ballou for keeping us all from the awkwardness of just me peppering Wolff with questions in the Zoom room.
Certainly, as you might have seen me say if you caught the video of the press conference, I really could have asked Wolff more questions — and of course I wanted to — but here’s what’s crucial to know beyod everything I included in Saturday night’s story.
Driussi’s fine (probably)
It appeared at points during the match that Sebastián Driussi was struggling with some sort of knock that happened last in the first half. He was eventually subbed out for Gyasi Zardes in the 85th minute after playing as a false nine, and according to FBref, getting zero shots (let alone shots on goal), and mustering just three shot-creating actions (for 0 xG) in a very xG-challenged match.
But Wolff said it was fatigue, not injury, that led him to pull Driussi out of the match’s fateful final 12 minutes.
“It was just a little bit of fatigue in that position,” Wolff said. “We needed some freshness to, one, get up the field and make a play, two, he had to be down there to defend.” Adding that Zardes brought some additional needed size, Wolff said of Driussi, “He was just, I think, fairly spent for him … that's more of a reason [for] bringing him off.”
We’ll conclusively know once Wednesday’s lineups come out — yes, there really is another match in two days — but Wolff is typically forthcoming about injuries in post-match interviews, even as he might be elusive about who’s ready to start in the days before a match.
