Bohls: It's early, but Austin FC's shocking loss exposes potential fissures, fixes

Austin FC didn’t go exactly from last all the way to first a year ago, but the Western Conference finalists definitely found themselves residing in that ritzy neighborhood last season.

On Saturday night at Q2 Stadium, the Verde and Black were downright slumming.

Less than four months after the second-year Major League Soccer franchise was making a lot of noise and flirting with the MLS Cup of all premature things, the Austin club quickly was reminded that one year’s success hardly guarantees another.

Just two years removed from its own humble origins as an expansion team, Austin entered the 2023 season as one of the clear MLS Cup favorites despite some doubters and promptly fell — and fell hard — 3-2 in its humiliating season opener to another start-up club.

It’s a bit hard to draw any strong and decisive conclusions from the shocking loss to St. Louis City SC. Even at home, no less, in front of Q2's 37th consecutive sellout crowd.

After all, it was still just the first match of the season, and no MLS Cup contender has been eliminated from the race in February, best we can recall.

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That said, however, the way victory escaped Verde raises some major concerns, none more pressing than the potential loss of star defender Julio Cascante to a leg injury that required an MRI on Sunday and possibly a longer stint on the sidelines.

Such a catastrophic scenario could prove to be deadly for an Austin club that lost top defender Ruben Gabrielsen to his home country of Norway and on this night relied on the services of a 22-year-old reserve pressed into extended playing time after Cascante went down early in Saturday’s match.

Youngster could have big shoes to fill

Kipp Keller was on the pitch for just his seventh career MLS game — some 105 fewer than the teammate he replaced — and was twice victimized for crucial, game-turning goals by St. Louis.

On one play, he silver-plattered a goal for the visitors when he sleepily was passing the ball back to his goalkeeper Brad Stuver, only to have Verde alumnus Jared Stroud intercept it and easily put the ball in the net to tie the game at 2-2 in the 78th minute. Just nine minutes later, Joao Klauss, St. Louis’s top scoring threat, blew by the youngster for a relatively uncontested game-winner, and Austin had no answer.

Whether Keller returns as a starter if Cascante is absent at least for next Saturday’s home match against Montreal if not much longer is very much up in the air. Adding insult to the wound and Cascante’s injury was the fact Keller was born in St. Louis, the irony of ironies.

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Keller wasn’t made available to speak to the media, but his teammates and coach backed him up.

“Our whole group supports him,” said team captain Sebastián Driussi, last year’s MVP runner-up who knocked in Austin’s first goal in the fourth minute of stoppage time before intermission but was otherwise unspectacular. “He’s a very young player. We’ve just got to lift him up. Everyone makes mistakes.”

All eyes on Julio Cascante's injury

Josh Wolff wasn’t so distressed that he pinned the defeat on the young defender, who started three games last season. But he was already entertaining his options to avoid another stinging defeat if Austin’s not at full-strength at center back. Verde was already operating from behind with Cascante replacing the reliable Gabrielsen and newcomer Leo Vaisanen barely off a plane from Finland.

Wolff mentioned Alex Ring, last year’s captain and a midfield starter, as a possibility at center back. Ring lost his starting position to potential breakout star Owen Wolff, who played well Saturday, but came on as a sub.

“We'll have to assess how long he is out,” Josh Wolff said of Cascante. “We don't want to lose any player for any amount of time, but everyone's getting up to speed. Kipp is young and certainly a little green. Alex is somebody that can also play center back, which he played his first year in New York City. We’ve talked a little bit about it as well. So there are some opportunities for other people who can work on that.”

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Vaisanen, the new defender, might also be plugged into the position and double up with Egyptian newcomer Amro Tarek, who joined the team only a few weeks ago after an earlier five-year stint with the New York Red Bulls. It’s pretty much a mixed bag at this point as the team faces seven matches in the first month.

“It sucks to lose,” Vaisanen said. “It sucks to lose at home even more. Hopefully, it’s not bad for Julio. Our other players will have to fill his shoes.”

Still, no one’s pressing the panic button after the one defeat, a highly embarrassing one, though, since it was in Austin’s own back yard. This was a far cry from last year’s opener, a 5-0 win over Cincinnati and the first of back-to-back games with five goals in each, and to come away with zero MLS points has to be infuriating.

'A snowball starts very small'

Scoring chances were much harder to come by on this crisp night, and passing was unusually sloppy.

Austin got little out of brand new striker Gyasi Zardes and not a whole lot more out of Driussi, who has to maximize more touches. Wolff said his superstar has the freedom to play all over the field but was self-restricted mostly to the right side with the idea that Zardes and Diego Fagúndez could spread the field and give Verde more looks at the net.

That strategy in a new 4-3-2-1 look didn’t pay off against the MLS' 29th expansion team, one that had only five players off other MLS rosters. Yet St. Louis was anything but intimidated, played freely and confidently and took the game to Austin in hopes of becoming only the fourth of the last 13 expansion teams in the last dozen years to make the playoffs in its initial campaign.

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“For us, it’s important to hit the ground running,” St. Louis head coach Bradley Carnell had said before the game. “Can we get some momentum early on? Can we get some points on the board? A snowball starts very small. Once it starts getting momentum, it becomes unstoppable.”

It must have seemed like an avalanche to Wolff and the raucous Q2 crowd of 20,738 who were hoping to build upon the magic of last season and jump-start an equally spectacular 2023. There’s nothing to suggest that can’t still happen even if Saturday's home loss will raise some eyebrows, dampen some enthusiasm and make a few wonder if last year’s deep run was a fluke.

If anything, bet on the opposite happening because this club is too deep, too proud and too talented with goal-scorers to provide ammo for worrywarts.

As Wolff put it, “This will make us better. It hurts in the short term, but in the long run, it’ll be a good reminder for us.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin FC struggles defensively in dismal 2023 season-opening debut