Episode 157 - The Gauntlet & The Pudding

But in this first half, we're going to talk about a, I don't know, neutral result, maybe?

We'll test the vibes

out.

Austin FC faced FC Dallas, sporting their third, or their, I don't know how to say, sporting Austin's third head coach of the season with Austin assistant coach Terry Boss manning the manager's box in place of Davey Arnaud, who was attending to a family matter.

Hope that's all resolved, brother.

Yes.

I know that

shit can be stressful.

Austin managed to earn their first shutout since May, marking just the second time ever that Austin has shut out FC Dallas in their all-time head-to-head, the last of which occurred in 2023.

Given that Dallas is tied for second in the Western Conference, technically they sit in fourth, but all on the same points, were you encouraged by this result and the performance from the guys across the pitch?

I want to say that this result elicited...

I think a continuation of the optimism that we talked about earlier in the episode.

And what I'll say is that I was encouraged by this, actually, in the sense that you recognize that this Dallas side is pretty potent in terms of its offense.

You look at Petar Musa, who's up there in the Golden Boot standings, and to be able to keep him off the...

the score sheet and the rest of the team at Bay.

I think fantastic job done by the team to get that done.

And obviously when you put the context of the rest of the season into focus, it's not exactly what we were hoping for as fans or as the team.

They really wanted those three points.

So that way we can get back into the playoff mix, but continuing our unbeaten streak.

you know going uh seven and beaten now at this point it's it's it's one of those things that you gotta you gotta commend it you know it's we're not we're not necessarily uh putting ourselves in in deeper in the hole uh we're still walking away with something in this in this case a point away from frisco but um yeah how do you feel

yeah yeah i think uh yep so i'll i'll say this up front i didn't actually get a chance to watch the game um front to back i was attending to a work function at the time um so this is all in hindsight review right looking at the stats looking at the highlights um But in that case, I think the highlights showed a tale that neither team really looked that dangerous in attack for one reason or another, whether that was congestion in the midfield, a lack of linking up well, or just a lack of tenacity in the final third.

Obviously, and we'll get to this in a minute, Brad Stuver had himself a night and kept us in this game at times like he's wanting to do.

But All in all, the story told something where we didn't create many or any big chances, but there were a few opportunities where we put the keeper in a precarious situation, made them earn the save.

getting guys like John Gallagher opportunities on goal in the grand scheme, you know, can be good if everybody else is also contributing in a way, um, you know, here and there, it can be, he had two good opportunities, you know, one curler, one, um, you know, hard, hard hit ball to, uh, down, down low and they were threatening, but, um, All in all, I think you can talk about the offense performance and how it's underwhelming as we've seen throughout the season, but getting a shutout for the first time since the halfway point of the season in a very...

Recently, a tough place to play, a tough place to earn that shutout and keep goals from going in.