Pushing 1:30am on Monday morning following a three-hour weather delay, Austin FC’s clash against the LA Galaxy produced an epic finish well worth the wait… for the dozens of visiting Angelenos still in attendance, that is.
For the couple thousand devoted ATX fans who stuck around on a school night, it was perhaps the final emotional nail in the coffin in what has been a nightmare season for the third-year club and its fanbase.
Despite playing some of its best soccer in months en route to a 3-1 lead late into the second half, Austin FC crumbled in the final minutes and surrendered two headed goals by the visiting Galaxy to watch a revitalizing win devolve into a crushing 3-3 draw. When it looked certain that the ATXFC’s club-record winless streak would finally come to an end after eight matches, it instead lives on into its 72nd day and counting.
“I think we thought we had the game in hand and we let them creep back in really quick, and it’s super frustrating,” ATX goalkeeper Brad Stuver said. “Honestly, I’m just like, super pissed off about it and just super frustrated.”
After heavy wind and rain pelted Q2 Stadium for hours, sending fans for shelter and even briefly knocking out stadium electricity, the storm eventually passed just in time for a Sunday night kickoff, technically speaking. Austin FC’s fifth-to-last match of the 2023 season kicked off at 11:30pm CT, by far the latest any event has ever gotten underway in the young history of Q2 Stadium.
The anticipated return of former ATX fan favorite Diego Fagundez, controversially traded to the Galaxy in early August, turned out to be a much more muted affair due to the heavily thinned-out crowd by kickoff.
The hosts, playing without a true striker and instead opting for Emiliano Rigoni as a false nine, opened the scoring right on the stroke of 10 minutes as Jon Gallagher fed a cross into Rigoni inside the Galaxy penalty area. Rigoni – intentionally or otherwise – knocked the ball down right into the path of a charging Alex Ring, who drove a right-footed shot past LA keeper Jonathan Bond and into the bottom corner for the 1-0 lead.
The Galaxy were given a chance to equalize in stoppage time of the first half from what seemed like a fairly innocuous challenge by ATX center back Julio Cascante on LA midfield star Riqui Puig. However, video review clearly showed Cascante missing the ball in his attempt at a tackle inside the 18-yard box, and instead catching Puig on the heel. Referee Ted Unkel granted the penalty kick after VAR review, which Puig was fortunate to score after his poorly-located spot kick ricocheted off Stuver and just into the net for the equalizer.
But with the final kick of the first half, Austin FC restored its one-goal lead thanks to some tremendous work by Gallagher on the right wing. The Irishman dusted his defender and put in a dangerous cross that a sliding Ethan Finlay managed to barely push over the goal line.
With just 15 minutes left in normal time, Austin FC added an insurance goal by way of Rigoni, who got in behind the Galaxy defense. thanks to a pinpoint through ball from Dani Pereira, and hammered the finish into the roof of the net.
The 3-1 scoreline lasted until the 89th minute, when a devastating header on the counter attack by Galaxy substitute Dejan Joveljić brought LA back within a goal. It was a similar story just five minutes later, when Verde killer Michael Barrios struck for the gut-punch tying goal. Barrios out-raced Memo Rodriguez to get his head on a floating Jonathan Perez cross and level the score in dramatic and, for the home fans, excruciating fashion.
For Austin FC, the two points dropped all but eliminates the club from playoff competition.
“Tonight to us [was] a must-win. This is 3-1, I mean, it’s as good an opportunity as you’re going to get,” head coach Josh Wolff said. “The players on the field at the end of the game have that responsibility to carry it out. They’re all experienced players… there’s absolutely no reason you can’t get the job done.”
The topic of exactly which players were on the pitch in the final moments was a point of discussion after the match, as Wolff curiously replaced defensive-minded midfielders Pereira and Jhojan Valencia with attacking-oriented players Rodney Redes and Owen Wolff, respectively. Most would consider that counterintuitive when nursing a late, two-goal lead. But Wolff insisted post-match that both Pereira and Valencia were experiencing cramping and specifically requested to be subbed out of the match, insinuating that if either player could have gone the full 90-plus minutes, he would have.
At this point though, it’s all water under the Q2 concourse. With just four matches remaining, ATXFC sits 12th in the Western Conference playoff race, four points behind 9th-place FC Dallas, who have a game in hand. The Verde and Black will likely have to win all four outright in order to qualify for the postseason, which would of course require winning a game for the first time in two-and-a-half months. Their next chance to do that is a golden one Saturday night in Colorado, taking on the woeful Rapids, who’ve won just four times all season … but still more recently than Austin FC.
For more Austin FC news and analysis, visit The Austin Chronicle‘s Austin FC hub. Follow “The Verde Report” columnist Eric Goodman on Twitter: @goodman.
This article appears in September 22 • 2023.