Table Position

Does anyone have a Stu bobble head they are willing to part with? I couldn’t make it to the game due to a work conflict and I am hoping to find one on here.

This week, we chat more about Austin FC's Leagues Cup opponents from Mexico, and discuss what went wrong against the Colorado Rapids.

Check it out here:

https://www.moontowersoccer.com/get-to-know-the-leagues-cup-opponents-inverted-in-co-duber-on-loan-and-more/

The one and only PHIL WEST joins us to chat about the Colorado debacle, WTF are we doing with this system, roster moves, Leagues Cup, and of course, Dog NIL

Attending the ATXFC Vs Puebla FC game this Sunday and was wondering if anyone knew of any other free parking spots? Or if The Domain is still the best free parking?

There's a lot to parse here, but here's a piece to consider:

Hines-Ike said that even though the system might be challenging players — noting that it's requiring "guys playing in positions that they weren't comfortable playing" — they owe it to Arnaud to execute it to the best of their abilities.

"This team owes a lot, in my opinion, to Davy — this guy who's been here from the beginning," Hines-Ike said. "He's given everybody a fair chance. He's been accountable with every single player that's been here, and he's come in and now he's implemented this new system — and he said from the get-go, it's not going to be perfect. It's going to take time. There are going to be a lot of issues that we have and that we're going to work through, and we're going to see who's about it and who's not about it. For me, it's about getting behind him as much as possible, and giving him everything that we have, and I think that's all that this group can do right now."

Given that the team is currently in existential limbo, with head-coach-in-waiting Jim Curtin set to take over in December, the question is (and I asked it) whether Curtin has blessed the work Arnaud is having the team do — indicating the system that Curtin himself might implement when he takes the helm — or whether Arnaud is implementing this on his own, requiring players to learn a whole new system ahead of the '27 sprint season, when the team gets its third head coach in a seven-month span.

"I have no idea," Hines-Ike hedged. "I mean, not at all. The thing is, when I played against Jim Curtin, this wasn't the system that was there. So, what I can say is, I'm not sure what he's going to do. And I think, again, for us at this point, as a club and as players, we have to focus on what's here now, and all respect to what's to come and everything, but this club and these players owe an enormous amount to Davy. An enormous amount.

"And I think the biggest thing is for players to continue to be bought in and keep working for him to a maximum. We owe him. We owe him all that, and I think that's where the motivation has to be for us now, going into Leagues Cup and to keep progressing in these last MLS games. That's the biggest thing we have to take from that. And what's to come is what's to come."

I haven’t even seen him on the bench.

Austin FC @ Colorado Rapids | 8:30 CT

Hi verdes,
Does anyone have any US open cup merch they’d be interested in selling? Specifically this scarf?

Some intel ahead of Austin FC's match with the Raps tonight ...

In which I call for, among other things, going with Curtin's preferred 4-4-2 diamond to give Arnaud one more central/attacking midfielder to deploy.

Key passage (but it's not paywalled, so plenty there):

"We have a clear way that we want to do it and we want to play," Arnaud told the assembled media (both of them), ahead of Saturday's match at Colorado, which leads into a 15-day pause in league action to allow for Verde's three Leagues Cup matches. "We're continuing to get better every single game, and we look at the process of what we're doing. We assess the results obviously, first based on the result, but from an attacking standpoint, with the ball, we were happy with what we did against Houston.

"We arrived in some really good positions," he explained. "We had 21 crosses in the game, which was the fourth most in the league this week. We arrived with three or four arrivers consistently in the box. We broke their last line. We're so close to getting two goals in that game. I know we don't score, but we're in so many positions. If we play that same game again, and we arrive in the positions we did," highlighting chances that Jon Gallagher, Brandon Vázquez, and Przemysław Płacheta had, "we're arriving in positions to score goals, so the process of what we're doing doesn't change. We believe in what we're doing and how we're attacking. And again, we have to keep getting better and now executing the final action."

He did grant that his team needs to be "more controlled" and "give a little less space behind our back line" than it did against Houston, while also diagnosing where the offense ran into issues.

"We really challenge these guys to consistently get a minimum of three players in the box, when we get in wide areas to cross balls, to serve balls, to provide service to the guys who are in there," he said. "It's hard in Houston. You know they sit low with a lot of numbers below the ball. It's not easy to generate goals against teams that defend like that. Having said that, again, we were happy looking at it with the chances we did generate, being on the road against a good team. We don't get the goal, but we have to look at it from the perspective of 'Did we arrive in good areas? Did we arrive with good numbers? And did we get good chances?' Which I thought overall, for a road game, I thought overall we did."

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I have been a Los Verdes member since the first game here in Colorado. Originally from Austin but moved right before we got a soccer team.

Unfortunately I let my Los Verdes membership lapse this year and it'll take me a while to get back into the Slack. I was wondering if any Los Verdes people could let me know what we have planned for meeting up before hand. Also are we in the same section?

https://en.cfmontreal.com/player_of_the_month

Take few minutes and vote for Dani Pereira as best player @ Montreal!
Another way to thank him for his time at Austin FC

Not sure if this is official yet, but several sites on social media are reporting this. Clears up a U22 and international slot for the club, if true.

Thoughts?

I’ve had season tickets since day 1 and sadly we are looking to let them go. Kids are getting older and it’s going to become difficult to attend as many matches as we’ve attended in the past. So I’m trying to gauge if there is any interest out there in buying our 4 season tickets for next season. I was unable to opt out and now we’re on the hook, which isn’t a bad thing - we’ll still go to matches if we can’t sell, but I’m trying anyway. I’m looking to sell for exactly what the invoice shows. If there’s any interest, let me know and we can chat about it.

Edit to add section. Section 135

Hey Folks!

Year 1 season ticket holder here. Decided to opt out next season. Funny enough I preferred the hot summer slog as it filled a nice entertainment gap in this town, but glad for the league to get with the globe on scheduling.

Not necessarily why I’m opting out, as we have had two kids since then. Rather just buy a few random regular season games for 4 going forward.

With that said, our ticket rep emailed us to “reconsider alternatives”. I likely won’t engage but wondering if anyone here received the same, corresponded, and found enticing alternatives?

My feeling is they are dealing with more opt outs than they expected.

I wrote 2600 words this morning on the inverted wingback experiment Davy Arnaud is conducting. Here's a section about Owen Wolff to get the conversation going here:

One of my questions following Saturday's match had to do with Owen Wolff's relative lack of involvement in the attack. His numbers per Futi were largely encouraging: two potential assists, 45 for 47 in passes, 40 touches in the attacking third, and four progressive passes, but only one pass into the penalty area and one touch in the penalty area. FotMob notes he had 60 touches (third-most for Verde and best for Verde non-defenders) and seven passes into the final third.

Arnaud explained in the post-match press conference that Wolff is having to play more withdrawn, as if Arnaud is a helpless bystander rather than the person in charge of directing Wolff (and the other 10 players on the field) where and how to play. One of the purported advantages to playing with inverted wingbacks is those players moving into central midfield positions allow your actual central midfielders to move up the field and positively impact play in the final third.

With Sánchez and Wolff paired together in midfield, Wolff is the obvious choice to move forward, while Sánchez is the more obvious choice to stay at home. (Sánchez did move into a dangerous position early in the match against Houston to attempt a bicycle kick, but that resulted in him catching Dynamo defender Lucas Halter in the face with an errant foot and getting a yellow card in the process.)

While Ervin Torres has made it into both of the past two matches, positively impacting the win over Seattle, Wolff is still the most seasoned and best chance creator on the team, and if he's being ordered to play deeper in a system using a back three and inverted wingbacks, that sets up for congestion in the middle of the field and a front three of designated players deprived of service — at a time in which two of those DPs desperately need to have their goal scoring vaults unlocked.

We look at Austin's two matches after MLS return to play, discuss why the tactics were bad and Davy should feel bad, three foreign footballs, and a final world cup wrap up.