Austin FC bested by Real Salt Lake in another 'frustrating' and 'difficult' loss

AUSTIN — Austin FC’s 2-1 loss to Real Salt Lake Saturday at Q2 was made even worse by how obviously preventable both goals were. Josh Wolff has seen those plays in training, making the result even more disappointing.

Rubio Rubin scored both goals for RSL, the first in the 15th minute, and the second late in the second half after a nearly two-hour weather delay. 

Julio Cascante scored his first goal of the season for the Verde & Black in stoppage time, but it was too little, too late.

“It was a difficult night and a frustrating night, odd in many ways,” Wolff said. “I think there were opportunities for us to make more of that game and capture momentum and push the result the other direction. We’ve got to clean it up.”

Two RSL attackers outjumped Alex Ring on the first goal. Jon Gallagher tried to clear the ball on the play that led to the second goal, but it fell to Andres Gómez, whose cross eventually found Rubin for what turned out to be the game-winner. 

“They got two guys in there against three guys for us,” Wolff said of the first goal. “To me, that’s a standard exercise that we do and we’ve got to deal with it better. Johnny has got to protect Alex’s back, Alex has got to protect Julio’s back. That's not an uncommon picture. We’ve got to be able to defend that ball and compete for that ball.”

Brad Stuver made four saves and still leads all Western Conference goalkeepers with 58 saves this season. 

“We’re disappointed with the result,” Stuver said. “We put enough into this game to see a result out. Giving up two goals thew ay we did is disappointing as a group. The goals are preventable and we put ourselves in a spot where we could’ve scored two or three more goals.” 

The injury bug bites again

Center back has been a revolving door for Austin FC this season, and every time Aleksandar Radovanovic has stepped on the field, he’s looked like one of the more competent and dominant players.

He dislocated his shoulder literally seconds after subbing on at halftime in Wednesday’s 2-1 win over Minnesota United FC, but had it pushed back in place and continued playing for the rest of the match. Wolff said after that match that Radovanovic would most likely see significant minutes against RSL.

After trying to play through the injury in practice, it’s worse than originally expected. 

“He tore his labrum and he has a small fracture in his shoulder,” Wolff said. “There was some swelling. He trained yesterday, but I wouldn’t really call it training, it was jogging and stretching and he did not feel good. It didn’t feel stable. We’re hopeful he can get reintroduced to training next week, and we’ll have to see how he responds to it. It’s a significant little hit.”

Driussi continuing to show improvement 

Sebastian Driussi is the most important player for Austin FC. When he’s playing well, the team is probably playing well, too. So it was good news for the Verde & Black when he returned on Wednesday and scored the game-winning goal. 

He got even more of a run-out on Saturday, coming on for Rodney Redes at halftime and finishing with four scoring attempts, tied for most in the match for Verde.

“The hope is he’ll continue to get more minutes as we go forward,” Wolff said. “We got him 30 the other night and we wanted to get him more tonight and I think he did. That sets him up going forward.”

Will we see him in the starting XI next Saturday for the first time since late April? It’s a very real possibility. 

The team can finally take a breath — kind of 

The last month of the season has been excruciating for Austin FC, playing every Wednesday and Saturday for four full weeks, a run of nine games in 29 days. 

But now that the dust has settled and there’s a full week before the next game on the road against Sporting Kansas City, the Verde & Black are in a playoff position, currently sitting in 8th, which would get them into the play-in game. (Per the current standings, it would be ... a home match against RSL.) 

“It’ll just give us a chance to work on things as a group on the field,” Wolff said. “Hopefully, guys will get healthy and rest and we’ll get a full complement of players going forward. Getting into a little consistency and rhythm in training will be helpful." 

Both Dani Pereira and Julio Cascante will leave the team over the international break, with Venezuela and Costa Rica respectively. Once they come back and things ramp up again later this month, Austin FC faces FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo in back-to-back Texas Derbies. 

Both of their rivals lost on Saturday, too. 

“It’s just about staying the course,” Stuver said. “We have put together performances where I think we can get results and we’ve shown we can grind and see results out. Right now, it’s about cleaning up certain aspects of our game and going into this summer run and making a push to move up in the standings.”

Bless the rains

As frustrating as the nearly two-hour weather delay might have been, the fans in the North End stuck around.

The match was postponed due to lightning in the area in the 40th minute, and play didn’t resume until it was almost 10:30 p.m.

Even with rain coming down in buckets, La Murga didn’t stop. 

“They were asking people to leave and they were still in the stands cheering,” Wolff said. “The spirit when we got back out there was incredible. It’s a long night and we have much appreciation for all our fans and the supporters’ section in particular. We would’ve loved to reward them for sticking around.”

Pereira was just as appreciative: “We say every time that they’re amazing. Big shout out to everyone that stayed. They know they’re amazing.”