Austin FC broke two streaks Wednesday night, but not necessarily the way it would have preferred.
The Verde & Black tied Los Angeles FC 1-1 at rain-soaked Q2 Stadium to halt their three-game slide and stop the visitors’ six-game winning streak. Jáder Obrian scored for Austin FC early in the first half, and Kei Kamara’s late header gave LAFC the draw.
Here are some thoughts from the match as Austin FC (6-7-6, 24 points) prepares to finish a stretch of three games in eight days Saturday at Minnesota:
Good result, bad ending
The disappointment from this match for Austin FC comes not in the result — LAFC entered the contest as the hottest team in the league with eight straight wins across all competitions and had lost only once since March 30 — but the fact that it was minutes away from what would have been one of its top two wins of the season.
Kamara’s header came in the 90th minute and at the end of a second half in which LAFC dominated possession, though the Verde & Black yielded few true scoring chances. (Side note: Kamara moved into a tie with Landon Donovan for second in MLS career goals with 145.)
More: Austin FC's player grades from our season's first-half report card
Austin FC’s overall team defense was excellent, with the visitors getting only one shot on goal. It was a dramatic turnaround from Saturday’s poor defensive showing at Colorado, and the Verde & Black contained LAFC star forward Denis Bouanga as well as anyone has all season.
While LAFC was knocking on the door most of the second half, Austin FC still nearly pulled off a result that would have turned a few heads across the league.
Man of the match: Jon Gallagher
While the whole backline deserves credit for almost recording a shutout against a team that has now scored in 14 straight MLS matches, Gallagher in particular was excellent. He teamed up with left back Guilherme Biro to make sure Bouanga was always marked, while locking down the right side of the defense in general.
Gallagher will probably be moved away from right back once new signee Mikkel Desler is eligible to play in late July. However, he’s been solid at the spot for more than two years and needs to be on the field somewhere.
Finlay excels
This was Ethan Finlay’s best game of the year.
He’s obviously over the injury that plagued him in May, and he beat defenders, made good passes and played with speed in impressive fashion at right-side winger. With its short roster situation, Austin FC needs Finlay more than ever over the next month, so it’s a good sign for the club moving forward.
Second guesses
After a solid first half, the Verde & Black were too conservative in the second half for my liking, as was the late substitution of Matt Hedges into the game to put three center backs on the field.
That’s nitpicking a bit as Austin FC was moments away from taking three points against the best team in the MLS personnelwise outside of Miami, but as fellow media members noted after the contest, the same thing happened earlier in the year vs. St. Louis, with a goal coming late against a bunker-style defense.
Both Finlay and Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff said after the game that the team needed to be better with the ball in the second half, with the latter stating that the conservative style of play was done out of respect for LAFC’s potent front line. That’s fair, and Wolff was frank — and perhaps foreshadowed the club’s next move — when he stated, “We need more firepower. When you look at what they have and what we have, there’s a significant difference.”
Bottom line: The draw was big, the point even bigger
This was an important result.
Austin FC was staring at a possible five-game losing streak — there won’t be expectations for much of anything Saturday at Minnesota with a short roster on two days' rest — and that’s now off the table. Plus the club played well in the first half and didn’t seem to suffer any injuries.
While whatever happens in Minnesota can be thrown out the window, the four-game stretch after that, before Desler and winger Osman Bakari join the team, is important. If Austin FC can produce six points and hang around in the playoff race, the final 10 games offer a chance for the club to make a run up the Western Conference standings.
