'You see the spirit': Austin FC emerges as the best, most surprising story of Leagues Cup so far

Two matches against quality Liga MX opponents, two wins. What's next for Austin FC hinges on the result of a match between Tijuana and Vancouver.

Austin FC scored its second impressive win over a Leagues Cup opponent in the span of five days on Tuesday, blanking CF Monterrey 2-0 to get to the knockout round. While it’s now on a course to likely be on the road per Leagues Cup’s labyrinthine tournament rules, it’s turning the heads of MLS pundits who thought Verde would have another two-and-out journey, as it did in 2023, against Liga MX opposition.

Assessing his team on Tuesday night, Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff returned to familiar tropes he’s espoused in this recent run of play — and even earlier in the season, when the team was looking shakier than it has in recent outings.

“I think we've started the season, 24 games, where we had 14 or 15 field players,” Wolff noted, “I’ve stressed that from the beginning. It's inadequate, but we had to do that in order to bring players in in the summer and had to leave the roster light. And that has a big effect over the course of the season. You know, when you hit busy schedules, you hit international, you have any kind of injuries, you just don't have the numbers and you lose quality.”

“In moments with international [play], you lose quality,” he added. “With Seba [Driussi] missing, you know, six, seven, eight games with illness or injury and suspension … we need a full roster like most teams. And as we've gotten some added quality, which immediately adds competition to the group, there is an uptick and these performances have been trending this way for me the last four or five weeks.”

Against Monterrey, Austin played a much more disciplined and defensive structure in the first half, vs. the more forward-minded approach against Pumas which led to a more chaotic sheen to the match. Though Monterrey got off 21 shots to Austin’s five, Monterrey only had six shots on target to Austin’s five, mustering a 1.83 xG to Austin’s 1.4. We’ve seen matches like this from Verde before this season, in which opponents are left taking a lot of low-percentage shots that Brad Stuver and the defensive line are able to absorb.

“You have to be aware of who the opponent is, be aware of who you are. We talked about this a lot, you guys have reminded me of the amount of shots,” Wolff noted. “We get a lot [against us] from distance, a lot from bad angles, a lot of blocks from outside the box.”

“They're a very good team,” he added. “You don't want to give them too many shots from anywhere on the field. They have quality, same as Pumas. They have quality around the field. It's not just the Mexican players. They're extremely good, but you’ve got, like us, you have Argentinians, Chileans. There's a mixed bag of players and extremely talented players. So you have to be diligent. You have to change structure at times, and I think we've shown our tactical flexibility, but ultimately execution inside our penalty box and execution inside the opposition’s penalty box. These things decide games.”

Wolff then added, “We're not going to get carried away. We don't get too bummed out and deterred as well. It goes the other way. But these are two big, big ones and we want to continue to move forward. The guys … you see the spirit, you can see what they're doing andit is a solid performance from a number of guys.”

Mikker Desler had his longest runout of the season so far (albeit, small sample size) against CF Monterrey on Tuesday night (OtraXFavor)