With disaster avoided and passage assured, Josh Wolff couldn’t resist a self-aware wisecrack.
As the head coach’s press conference got underway after Austin FC’s gripping penalty-kicks win over Real Salt Lake in Round One of the 2022 Audi MLS Cup Playoffs on Sunday, communications exec Ryan Madden confirmed to the gathered media at Q2 Stadium that ATX are the only team in MLS history to come back from two goals behind and win four times in a single season.
“Kind of our trademark,” interjected Wolff with a rueful shake of the head.
It’s certainly not how he and his staff drew things up. A positional-play proponent with meticulous, strongly-held ideas about how best to play the game, he’d much rather set the tone and control affairs like this from start to finish.
His players, however, have developed a certain familiarity with wrangling chaos, with digging out of holes.
“I wouldn’t say they’re comfortable,” said Wolff of his team’s propensity for rallying as he hailed their “character” under pressure. “But they understand what's needed.”
Comeback Kings
D.C. United, the Colorado Rapids, and Sporting Kansas City all found themselves up 2-0 on the Verde & Black earlier this year – the latter on ATX’s home turf – only to walk away empty-handed to the tune of 3-2, 3-2 and 4-3, respectively. Now RSL join that star-crossed group.
Pablo Mastroeni’s side stunned the sellout crowd that gathered for Austin’s first-ever playoff game with two goals in the match’s first 15 minutes, courtesy of a Sergio Cordova brace, looking very much again like the Utah underdog that roared in last year’s Western Conference bracket.
It took a lovely deficit-cutting header by Sebastián Driussi, a fateful second yellow card for Rubio Rubin very early in the second half – forcing RSL to defend their lead, then their draw shorthanded for interminably long stretches – and an equalizing penalty kick by Driussi very deep into second half injury time to prevent another upset like the two they pulled off in 2021.
“Así es el fútbol,” lamented Mastroeni in his postgame media availability. (‘That’s soccer.’)
“Being two minutes away from securing the result to move on, I think is the most painful.”
Try, try again
Austin undoubtedly made very heavy lifting of the task. Wolff turned to humor again to wryly acknowledge his side’s profligacy in front of goal – they piled up a striking 3.3 expected goals and tied the all-time MLS playoffs record for shots (37) that dates back to 2005, with second-half sub Emiliano Rigoni particularly wasteful.
“If I look at the video – when I look at the video – there's probably some chances in there that we missed,” deadpanned their coach. “I think there's probably one or two.
“We put them under a lot of pressure, and we should, obviously, being up a guy,” he added. “There’s a lot of guys in the box, we have a lot of services coming from deep areas, you try to get in shots from distance when you can get them. But for me it’s more about getting bodies in front of goal. And Seba hit the post, Emiliano missed two or three – there was plenty of guys. I think there was plenty of opportunities to score goals … But we found a way, and we move on. It’s all this game is about, when you get into the knockout phase: win and move on.”
Spot-kick hero
His team’s diligence and persistence, willed on desperately by their supporters, extended their advantage to extra time. And with Salt Lake’s resistance still unbroken after 120-plus minutes, goalkeeper Brad Stuver grabbed the spotlight in the penalty-kick shootout, saving two spot kicks before Tate Schmitt blazed over to punch Austin’s ticket to the Western Conference semifinals.
“You do your homework, and [goalkeepers coach] Preston [Burpo] has been in this league a long time; he preps him really well,” said Wolff of Stuver, who saved two PKs in the regular season and has now saved 4/11 from the spot in his MLS career.
“I think Brad, it's part his responsibility, it's part of us as coaches to put him in a space to succeed. But he's done extremely well on penalty kicks and that's definitely something that plays into the minds of shot takers, there's no doubt about it.”
Now ATX will host the winner of Monday’s FC Dallas-Minnesota United match next weekend, almost certainly in another feverish atmosphere at a packed Q2. Could that, combined with Stuver’s shot-stopping and Driussi’s nose for goal, power the central Texans even further?
“There's plenty of reason for momentum,” said Wolff. “The fans, the energy inside our stadium, again, is palpable, and it's not like that everywhere, I say that quite often. But it's a unique relationship with fans, the players and our community, and they push us on.”
