Austin FC eliminated from playoff contention; many things went wrong for club in 2023

Los Angeles FC was the wrong team to be up against in a must-win situation for Austin FC.

The defending MLS Cup champion, with a star-studded roster, hammered El Tree 4-2 Saturday night at Q2 Stadium to eliminate it from playoff contention and continue an awful three months for the club.

Denis Bouanga — who, if we’re being honest, is too good for MLS — scored twice, and Timothy Tillman and Cristian Olivera also found the net for the visitors. El Tree trailed 4-0 before Leo Väisänen scored his first goal of the season on a header off a nice cross from Dani Pereira, and an LAFC own goal set the final tally.

Bouanga finished with five goals in two games against Austin FC after recording a hat trick in the first meeting way back on April 8.

Here are some thoughts from the match and on the season as a whole as Austin FC has two weeks off for the international break before closing out a disappointing year, which has seen only win one in the past 11 games, at San Jose on Oct. 21:

Missed opportunities before Saturday costly

After the New England match Sept. 2, I wrote in this space that Austin FC needed to take advantage of the five contests against weaker competition leading up to the LAFC match because it’s not a club against which you want to have to get a result.

El Tree didn’t do that, going 1-2-2 with five points.

The season was lost in a number of games over the past seven months — blowing late leads against the Los Angeles Galaxy and St. Louis and not being able to get a win in two chances versus lowly Colorado are the most obvious examples — but Saturday night wasn’t one of them.

Anyone with vision and level-headed thinking realizes that LAFC is a far better team and has a ridiculously talented roster.

The club’s general manager, John Thorrington, has done a brilliant job bringing in talent on club-friendly deals — Bouanga makes only $2 million — and consistently replaces that talent when it moves elsewhere.

I don’t consider Austin FC’s roster to be particularly poor, but outside of Sebastián Driussi, it’s hard to pinpoint another player who would start for LAFC.

Improvement needed on back line and at forward

In the postgame press conference, both Austin FC coach Josh Wolff and midfielder Ethan Finlay noted that the club regressed defensively as a team this season, with Wolff specifically noting that in the past three months it had allowed too many soft goals.

There’s not one specific player to blame, but it’s going to be a point of emphasis going forward for new sporting director Rodolfo Borrell to improve as the club is fourth-worst in MLS in goals allowed with 54.

The other spot where Austin FC needs to improve drastically is forward.

Gyasi Zardes, Maxi Urruti and Will Bruin are all north of 32, with Bruin about to turn 34 and Urruti turning 33 at the start of next season. It was a mistake by the club not to bring in a younger forward at one of the most important spots on the field, and signing Zardes to an expensive three-year deal last winter looks to have been a costly error.

Overall, the club needs to get younger across the board.

Players older than 30 have their place, but Austin FC has far too many and eventually that will catch up to a club.

Lack of sporting director hurt; other mistakes made

The cloud of former sporting director Claudio Reyna resigning in the offseason due to things having nothing to do with Austin FC seemed to hang over the club all year.

Wolff noted Saturday that contracts with former players — presumably center back Ruben Gabrielsen — didn’t get done in the offseason and that potential free agent acquisitions backed out of deals at the last moment.

Giving former midfielder Diego Fagúndez a $600,000 raise was also a mistake — whether that was done by Reyna or not isn’t clear — and left Austin FC paralyzed to make any meaningful moves in the summer transfer window besides trading for center back Matt Hedges.

Looking back, while the club seemingly made every right move in the 2022 offseason, it made every wrong move before the 2023 campaign. That might have even started in the summer of 2022 when it signed winger Emiliano Rigoni, who hasn't lived up to his $2 million annual salary.

Still, Austin FC had chances in the final three weeks to be in a playoff spot going into the San Jose game.

If the team hadn’t given up two goals after the 88th minute versus the Galaxy and if Will Bruin had made an easy finish against Colorado, it would be tied for ninth place and would control its own destiny versus the Earthquakes.

But that didn’t happen.

There are so many what-ifs to 2023 that Austin FC will have to ponder for nearly five months before the 2024 campaign begins in late February. At that point, the club could look drastically different with Finlay being a free agent and Austin FC unlikely to pick up the expensive contract options on Alex Ring, who will turn 33 in April, and Urruti.

However, making some drastic roster moves is something Austin FC might need.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin FC dominated by LAFC as its playoff hopes are extinguished