Austin FC’s 2024 season has gotten off to a rather inauspicious start. After a disappointing 2-1 loss to Minnesota spoiled a rowdy Q2 Stadium atmosphere in the season opener, last Saturday the Verde and Black escaped its first road test of the season with a 0-0 draw against the Seattle Sounders that only a defender – or certain psychopath managers like José Mourinho and Diego Simeone – could love.
Josh Wolff isn’t one of those managers. His obsession isn’t defense, it’s goals. And so far, Austin FC has just one to speak of. There are some caveats (or, if you prefer, excuses) to mention. The most glaring of which is that the club has not had Sebastián Driussi on the pitch yet this season. There was also some talk of slow, grabby turf at Lumen Field as well as a nasty Seattle weather forecast with temps in the high 30s and intermittent rain. But those details do little to justify the fact that Austin managed just two shots against Seattle’s 23.
Fortunately for Austin, none of those 23 shots found the back of the net. A draw in Seattle is a positive result regardless of the circumstances, and Wolff chose to focus on that fact after the match rather than the lack of any attacking threat to speak of.
Fair enough. Fans don’t have to like it, but a coach is well within his rights to accentuate the positive after his club earned its first point of the season and secured a hard-earned clean sheet. If every incomplete performance was met with abject negativity, he’d lose the locker room in a hurry. A decent portion of Austin FC’s players, particularly defenders like Matt Hedges, left Seattle proud of how the club held firm in the face of constant pressure.
“Very proud of the work we put in tonight,” Hedges emphasized. “As a back line and as a unit, we gained a lot of confidence from this performance.”
Defensive midfielder Jhojan Valencia logged perhaps his best game as an Austin FC player, anchoring the club on both sides of the ball and earning himself a spot on MLS’s team of the week.
If Wolff and his players can draw confidence from an unsightly stalemate in enemy territory, more power to them. But that confidence needs to translate on the pitch.
As El Tree returns home for back-to-back tough matchups at Q2 Stadium, the bar of expectation goes up. Starting Saturday against 2023 Western Conference pacesetters St. Louis City, Austin FC simply has to find some kind of offensive stride.
Driussi’s return would certainly help things, but one player shouldn’t make or break an entire system. Josh Wolff must figure out how to utilize the lesser – but still very capable – attacking players he has at his disposal. At the same time, those players need to step up and start making their coach look better than they have so far.
Gyasi Zardes, Diego Rubio, Jáder Obrian, and Ethan Finlay have all had plenty of MLS goalscoring success in years gone by. Emiliano Rigoni has scored goals in the UEFA Europa League. They are better than what they’ve shown donning the ATX “Armadillo Kit” this season.
This time, a scrappy 0-0 draw isn’t going to cut it.
This article appears in March 8 • 2024.
