Easily discouraged Austin FC supporters would have been strongly advised to avoid looking at preseason predictions for the 2024 MLS season. Unlike the upcoming solar eclipse, there aren’t special glasses powerful enough to make the near-universal grim prognostications for Austin FC’s fourth season safe for Verde and Black fans to lay their eyes on.

Only three of 17 mlssoccer.com experts predicted Austin FC to finish higher than 13th place in the Western conference. Despite the league’s rampant expansion in recent years, there are still only 14 teams in MLS’s Western conference. Professional smart people expect Austin FC to be bad in 2024…like really, really bad.

If bleak expectations weren’t enough to horrify the Austin FC faithful, news of talismanic number 10 Sebastian Driussi picking up a hamstring injury before Saturday night’s season opener at Q2 Stadium against Minnesota United would have surely prompted blood-curdling panic. Saturday night’s evidence suggests Driussi will need to make a prompt recovery if Austin FC are going to have any hope of defying their 2024 projections.

Minnesota United were dominant throughout the majority of their 2-1 over Austin FC, but the opening 45 minutes were especially nightmarish for the home supporters. “The first half was quite disappointing,” Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff said in his post-match press conference. “It was unrecognizable from what our group has looked like in six to seven weeks of preseason.”

Austin FC were outshot 14 to three in the first half and were fortunate to go into halftime only trailing 1-0. Minnesota United right winger Sang-Bin Jeong was a menace for much of the evening, and his cross – which clipped the outstretched hand of an overworked Brad Stuver – set up surging midfielder Robin Lod’s opening 34th-minute goal. Busier than any team would like their goalkeeper to be, per fotmob.com, Stuver faced 3.19 expected goals on target (xGOT) on Saturday night (xGOT measures the probability of a shot resulting in a goal and takes into account where the shot ended up).

And if Austin FC’s middling first half performance wasn’t enough to vanquish any opening day optimism, starting center back Leo Vaisanen was forced to exit the match in the 36th minute with what Wolff described as “plantar fasciitis irritation.” Depth wasn’t a word anyone used in preseason to describe Austin FC’s options in defense. Wolff will be desperate for Vaisanen – on paper the best center back on the team – to miss as little game time as possible.

For those insistent on positivity, the second half introductions of striker Diego Rubio and right winger Jader Obrian injected life into Austin FC. Rubio successfully dropped off the forward line to receive passes in a way that starting striker Gyasi Zardes – one would be forgiven for thinking Zardes was wearing miniature trampolines on his feet with how passes awkwardly bounced off him – failed to in his 58 minutes.

Obrian blitzed Minnesota United’s defense much more effectively than the man he replaced, Ethan Finlay. Per fotmob.com, Obrian registered two shots and 18 touches in his 32 minutes of work versus Finlay’s one shot and 14 touches in 58 minutes. “The introduction of those guys helped us,” Wolff said of Rubio and Obrian.

With Austin FC tilting the play towards an always-raucous supporters section and Minnesota United’s goal as the second half continued, it looked – however fleetingly – like a Verde-tinged equalizer might arrive. Cue Minnesota substitute Alejandro Ban delivering a sucker punch goal on the counterattack in the first minute of second half stoppage time. Austin FC newcomer, left back Guilherme Biro, added a late consolation goal right before the final whistle.

Little is expected of Austin FC in 2024. The team was poor 2023, and major changes weren’t made to the roster in the offseason. Energetic as Rubio and Obrian were in the second half against Minnesota, they simply aren’t players capable of turning a bad team into a good one. Patience will be the word of the year for a fanbase that seems to be running out of it. No fan likes to hear their favorite team will spend a season dwelling in the cellar. Unfortunately for Austin FC, there’s much work to be done to prove their (many) doubters wrong.

Eric McCoy

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