Every morning, we send you a free email packed with Austin news, business, and entertainment. Join 16,000+ readers who wake up to Austonia's newsletter.
Featured
austonia newsletter
Most viewed
Austin FC is looking to regroup as they play two Texas rivals this week. (Austin FC)
Austin FC Head Coach Josh Wolff has run out of ways to say it: the team needs to score goals.
Austin is now scoreless for four of five of its home matches and has been shut out for nine of its last 11 games. Instead of trending upward after their grueling seven-match road stretch, the team has tanked to the bottom of the West as they head to a home match against Houston Dynamo at 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
For everything, you need to know about attending the game, click here.
What to expect
Coming to Austin was an easy decision for @SebadriussiOk. Our supporters and culture make our guys feel right at home. pic.twitter.com/siMblqHfP0
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) July 30, 2021
They say all good things come in threes, and for Austin those come in the names of Sebastian Driussi, Moussa Djitte and McKinze Gaines. Driussi, who is Austin FC's most expensive signee yet and could solve Austin's scoring woes, can stop quarantining Tuesday. He likely won't play Wednesday since he will have had only one minute of training but will probably debut in a road match against FC Dallas on Saturday. Meanwhile, Djitte is still missing and hasn't made it to the U.S. at the confusion of Austin FC fans and staff and there's no news of Gaines playing on Wednesday after signing on Saturday.
Austin's injured roster is finally drying up: right back Nick Lima subbed in for a few minutes for the first time in weeks on Saturday against Colorado, and just four others are still off the pitch. Dani Pereira is still out, however, and he's proven to be the secret ingredient for many of Austin's best matches in the past.
Houston was Austin FC's first-ever MLS opponent as they beat the club 3-2 for a preseason La Copita match. Since then, the club has stayed out of the limelight and is ninth in the Western Conference off of a nine-match winless streak. Like Austin, the Dynamo are skimpy on scoring, but their solid defense has led them to three straight draws.
On Saturday, Houston made a big move by signing LAFC winger Corey Baird. Baird scored against Austin in the teams' first matchup on April 17 and has scored two more goals since, but it's unclear whether the experienced winger will be wearing orange come Wednesday.
Though unlikely, it could be a signee vs. signee situation as Austin and Houston head into their first official Texas Derby match.
Projected starting lineup
Sans Driussi, Austin will still be hard-pressed to find their perfect fit as striker up top. A young Manny Perez took the starting spot for the first time on Saturday and could crown the offense again. Meanwhile, Rodney Redes is as likely as any other to take the winger position as he looks to finally nab that first official goal with the team. Jon Gallagher, who scored Austin's first home goal, and winger Jared Stroud are also options to play on the right flank.
Nick Lima saw limited playing time on Saturday, and he could be back to take his starting spot this week—this time sporting a mohawk. His replacement, 32-year-old Hector Jimenez, has still been playing well and could hold onto the spot for longer.
Cecilio Dominguez could permanently be back in his left winger position, or he could sit up top and adopt his most comfortable "false-9" status as the club waits for Driussi to take the striker spot.
Meanwhile, Brad Stuver continues to save the team from catastrophe in the keeper position. Stuver once again pulled off two nail-biting saves in the 1-0 loss to Colorado on Saturday and is quickly gaining acclaim as a potential MLS All-Star roster member.
- Sebastian Driussi and Moussa Djitte bring new hope to Austin FC ... ›
- First half lead not enough for an Austin FC victory in first MLS ... ›
- Austin FC loses in PKs to FC Dallas in first away scrimmage - austonia ›
- Wolff, Austin FC prep for new practice field to host La Copita match ... ›
- Austin FC ends La Copita with 5-1 win over San Antonio FC - austonia ›
- Where to watch La Copita as an Austin FC fan - austonia ›
- Austin FC, FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo to make a Texas rivalry ... ›
- PREVIEW: Still without their three signees, Austin kicks off Texas Derby at home vs. Houston Dynamo - austonia ›
- Verde victory! An all-or-nothing Austin FC ends its scoring drought with 3-2 Texas rivalry win - austonia ›
- LIVE: Austin FC looks to win with dream team lineup against Real Salt Lake - austonia ›
- Despite 'dream team' lineup, Austin FC fails to score in 1-0 loss out West - austonia ›
- Austin FC's Sebastian Driussi, Diego Fagundez debut on MLS Team of the Week - austonia ›
- LIVE: Austin FC battles final Texas Derby foe Houston Dynamo - austonia ›
- All brakes, no gas: Austin FC plummets to bottom of the West in 3-0 loss to Houston Dynamo - austonia ›
- LIVE: Austin FC fights first-ever opponent LAFC at home - austonia ›
- Third time not quite the charm for Austin FC in 2-1 loss to LAFC - austonia ›
- LIVE: Austin FC takes on San Jose Earthquakes in second home faceoff ›
Popular
(Pexels)
Our 15-year-old granddaughter and her sister, 12, have spent summer weeks with us, usually separately so that we could better get to know each individually. In visits focused on Austin and Port Aransas, the girls seemed to be developing an affection for Texas.
Houston and Dallas are two great American cities, the 4th and 9th largest, each loaded with cultural treasures, each standing in glittering and starchy contrast to Austin’s more louche, T-shirts and shorts ways.
Three hours up I-35, Dallas loomed before us as a set of gray skyscrapers in a filmy haze, accessed only through a concrete mixmaster of freeways, ramps and exits. I drove with false confidence. Be calm, I said to myself, it will all end in 10 minutes under the hotel entrance canopy. And it did.
The pool at the Crescent Court Hotel in Dallas. (Crescent Court Hotel)
We stayed three nights at the Crescent Court Hotel ($622 a night for two queens), a high-end hotel in Uptown, patronized by women in white blazers, business people in suits, and tall, lean professional athletes, their shiny Escalades and Corvettes darting in and out, and other celebrities like Bill Barr, the former attorney general who shoe-horned his ample self into a Toyota.
Each morning as I walked to Whole Foods for a cappuccino, a fellow identified by a bellman as Billy the Oilman arrived in his Rolls Royce Phantom. Where does he park? “Wherever he wants to. He likes the Starbucks here.”
We garaged our more modest set of wheels for the visit. We were chauffeured for tips by Matt Cooney and Alfonza “The Rev” Scott in the hotel’s black Audi sedan. They drove us to museums, restaurants and past the enclaves of the rich and famous. In Highland Park, The Rev pointed out the homes of the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones and Troy Aikman along with the family compound of the Hunts, oil and gas tycoons.
The Dallas Museum of Art’s “Cartier and Islam” exhibit (until Sept. 18) attracted an older crowd; the nearby Perot Museum of Nature and Science was a powerful whirlpool of kids’ groups ricocheting from the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the oil fracking exhibit. Watch your shins.
A Geogia O'Keeffe oil painting called "Ranchos Church, New Mexico" at the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art. (Rich Oppel)
For us, the best museum was the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, a 50-minute, madcap drive away via a 75 mph toll lane along I-30. Don’t try it during rush hour. The Carter has an exquisite collection of Remington paintings and sculptures and an excellent array of 19th and 20th-century paintings as well. Pick one museum? The Amon Carter. Peaceful, beautiful, uncrowded, free admission and small enough to manage in two hours.
The Fort Worth Stockyards, a place of history (with a dab of schmaltz), fun and good shopping, filled one of our mornings. The 98 acres brand the city as Cowboy Town, with a rodeo and a twice-daily (11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.) cattle drive. We shopped for boots, drank coffee and watched the “herd” of 18 longhorns. So languid was their progress that if this were a real market drive the beef would have been very tough and leathery before it hit the steakhouse dinner plate.
The cattle drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards. (Rich Oppel)
But we could identify: the temperature was 97. “I saw a dog chasing a cat today,” said the emcee, deploying a very old joke. “It was so hot that both were walking.”
With limited time, we chose three very different restaurants:
- Nobu, in the Crescent Court Hotel; Jia, a modern Chinese restaurant in Highland Park; and Joe T. Garcia’s in Fort Worth. Nobu’s exotic Japanese menu set us back $480, with tip, for four (we had a guest), but it was worth it.
- Jia was an ordinary suburban strip mall restaurant, but with good food and a reasonable tab of $110 for four.
- Joe T.’s is an 85-year-old Fort Worth institution (think Matt’s El Rancho but larger), a fine Mexican restaurant where a meal with two drinks was $115.
Sushi at high-end restaurant Nobu. (Crescent Hotel)
It was all a splurge for a grandchild’s visit. Now we will get back to our ordinary road trips of Hampton Inns, where a room rate is closer to the Crescent Court’s overnight parking rate of $52. And to corner cafes in small towns.
Did Dallas change our 15-year-old’s view of Texas? “Yes. I think it’s a lot cooler than I did. The fashion, the food.” So, not only Austin is cool. Take Texas as a whole. It’s a big, complex, diverse and wonderful state.
