Austin FC ties Seattle Sounders: 5 takeaways from the deadlock at Q2 Stadium
Austin FC is about as close as a team can get to being the talk of Major League Soccer’s first month.
Following a 1-1 tie with Seattle Sounders FC Sunday at Q2 Stadium in which El Tree dominated the second half and hit the post multiple times, in a performance that comes off the heels of a 1-0 loss at Portland where replay showed it should have had a game-tying penalty attempt in the second half, Austin FC is a few inches and one call away from massive national attention.
Instead, El Tree will head into an 11-day layoff where it can feel very confident in how it has played the first month of the season, but where it will still be flying under the radar nationally.
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Here are five observations from Sunday's draw with Seattle:
Tying the best team in the West is a good result
This wasn’t the way Austin FC wanted to go into a 11-day layoff before it travels to San Jose on April 2 after the international break, but this isn’t a bad result.
As noted above, El Tree was by far the better team in the second half, dominating for long stretches and producing numerous scoring opportunities.
Seattle is largely thought of as the best team in the Western Conference, and to get one point against them is nothing to sneer at.
This was a match Austin FC likely would have lost last year, and the team continues to show it’s one that should be fighting for a playoff spot all season long.
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Squad rotation didn't pay off
Midfielder Diego Fagundez continued his solid play with his second-half goal that tied the game for El Tree, but he didn’t start a game for the first time this season.
Austin FC manager Josh Wolff elected to go with Ethan Finlay instead, and also started Moussa Djitté at striker instead of Maxi Urruti.
Both Fagundez and Urruti came on in the 57th minute, and though Djitté played well in the first half and Finlay wasn’t bad, the moves were a bit curious.
Defensive lapse cost team a possible win
There was a defensive breakdown by El Tree on Seattle’s first-half goal, with Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldán being wide open to receive a pass down the near sideline to easily dribble into the Austin FC box and find Will Bruin for a quick-touch goal.
Mistakes like that can’t happen against a team like Seattle.
It’s not the end of the world, but that may have been the difference between a win and a loss.
Goalkeeper Brad Stuver continues to impress
Goalkeeper Brad Stuver continues to show he may be the league’s most underrated player.
He made several fine saves, including one late in the second half on a point-blank save in the box that saved the tie.
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Team could compile points with April schedule
Austin FC enters a stretch in the schedule where we could learn a lot about the team by the end of April.
It has five matches against mostly average competition — San Jose, Minnesota, D.C., Vancouver and Houston — with a chance to compile a fair number of points.
Anything less than eight points from this stretch, and it may be a cause for concern. More than 10 points and it will signal El Tree could be a top-five team in the West.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin FC ties Seattle Sounders in MLS play at Q2 Stadium
