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(Austin FC/Twitter)
It's that time again! Austin FC is back in Cali to take on the second Los Angeles powerhouse, LA Galaxy, at 2:30 p.m. this Saturday. The match will be shown on Univision and will be live on Twitter, and I'll be documenting the biggest saves and plays that could make you drop your beer right here.
Follow along for a live feed of the Austin FC match.
FULL TIME: Austin loses 2-0 to LA Galaxy
Austin FC was unable to prevent Chicharito from scroing yet another goal as they fell 2-0 to LA Galaxy. Recap to come.
85' Austin is saved by an offsides call
LA Galaxy's Kevin Cabral makes an attempt at 3-0, but an offsides call saves Austin FC from another goal.
75' The Chicharito dam breaks, LA Galaxy scores
⚽️ x 7️⃣@CH14_ scores his league-leading seventh of the season! #LAvATX pic.twitter.com/28zLnOmKWb
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 15, 2021
Chicharito finally got one past Stuver with his seventh goal in five matches this season. LA Galaxy goes up 2-0, and Chicharito is now a league leader in goals scored.
58' Subs bring new fire to the ptich
Subs:
— Austonia (@austonianews) May 15, 2021
➡️Rodney Redes
⬅️ Jared Stroud
➡️ Sebastian Berhalter
⬅️Diego Fagundez
➡️ Kekuta Manneh
⬅️ Danny Hoesen
Austin FC takes out Jared Stroud, Diego Fagundez and Danny Hoesen to shake up the lineup. Rodney Redes begins threatening the line immediately at right wing, and sub Kekuta Manneh gets two shots in within a few minutes of coming on to the pitch. Cecilio Dominguez switches to the No. 9 position.
Second half begins, Austin strikes back
46' | Back for the second half!#LAvATX | 1-0 pic.twitter.com/TgkzaT412D
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) May 15, 2021
Austin FC has been outplayed by the Galaxy so far, but the club made two quick attempts as they went for a turnaround at the start of the second half. A shot by Danny Pereira goes high and wide, and a header by Danny Hoesen is just a bit too high.
38' Jimenez out on injury
38' | Sub for #AustinFC
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) May 15, 2021
➡️ Nick Lima
⬅️ Hector Jimenez pic.twitter.com/YQTbfpcAHx
Austin FC brings out the stretcher for right back Hector Jimenez, who fell in an attempt to save the LA Galaxy goal. Jimenez is replaced by Nick Lima after just 38 minutes in his first start with Austin FC.
35' LA Galaxy scores, goes up 1-0
Ball over the top + calm finish from @SLletget!@LAGalaxy grab the opener. #LAvATX pic.twitter.com/bU1cVbEKM7
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 15, 2021
LA Galaxy's Sebastian Lletget scores the match opener after overpowering a diving Hector Jimenez, curling a shot over Stuver to make the match 1-0.
25' Brad Stuver with a diving save!
BIG TIME BRAD.
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) May 15, 2021
Take a bow, sir. 👏 pic.twitter.com/66kpgJ9o1e
Austin FC saw its first major threat from the formidable Chicharito when a penalty was drawn on Jhohan Romana. In his usual game-saving fashion, keeper Brad Stuver kept the scoreboard empty with a diving save in the bottom right corner.
2:05 p.m.- Austin FC lineup is released
Austin FC has big lineup changes heading into the big match, but the moves were mostly expected. Captain Alex Ring is out due to a second yellow card last match, and the club put standout rookie Daniel Pereira in his stead. Danny Hoesen is back at the crown of the lineup, and there are rumors that fellow striker Jon Gallagher didn't travel with the team due to injury. He's not on the bench this week.
Finally, Hector Jimenez gets his first start with the club at right back in the stead of Nick Lima.
2:00 p.m.- Los Verdes watch party, South-side style
(Claire Partain/Austonia)
Hundreds of people are at the Los Verdes watch party, including myself and a celebrity appearance in La Murga, Austin FC's own fan band.
Cheers can be heard every time an Austin FC player is featured on the screen on the Univision broadcast.
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Popular
Former UT tennis coach Michael Center told Sports Illustrated he thinks others were involved in the Varsity Blues scandal at UT.
His name dragged through the mud, Center was fired, arrested by the FBI and sentenced to six months in a Central Texas federal prison after pleading guilty to two charges related to mail fraud. And over a year after his release, Center told Sports Illustrated he doubts he was the only one in burnt orange involved.
When the Varsity Blues scandal broke out to the public in 2019, the investigation was a perfect storm for nationwide attention: Hollywood glamour, blue blood conspiracy and faith in the tried-and-true American education system came to a head as 33 movie stars and other elites were found guilty of paying more than $25 million to pave their children’s way into eight colleges, including the University of Texas.
UT was one of eight schools caught in the college admissions scandal. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
Singer's client, private equity executive Chris Schaepe, was looking for a way to bend UT's tight admissions policies for his son, who was seeking a position oddly as a manager on UT’s basketball team. Through a middleman, Singer contacted Center, who eventually agreed.
Schaepe's son hadn't played tennis since his freshman year of high school. It was a detail that Center says passed through plenty of hands before he was admitted, including "academic support staff, the compliance office, the sports supervisor and, ultimately, the athletic director," SI's Jon Wertheim writes.
No one in the entire athletic department, including seven "risk management and compliant services department" employees, was named, implicated or punished. After an internal investigation, Center was the only one named in the Varsity Blues "subterfuge" in a September 2019 UT news release signed by the university president.
He told Austonia he was never contacted by the university during the investigation, and when the NCAA interviewed him for its investigation, he says it cleared him of any violations.
“I almost fell out of my chair,” Center said. “I literally couldn’t breathe. There’s no college coach in America—much less at a state school, much less a coach of a nonrevenue sport—who can admit an athlete without consulting other people in the athletic department. What they were asking people to believe, it’s just impossible.” SI said Center's assertion was backed by multiple UT coaches and administrators at other schools.
But why would the Forty Acres be complicit?
(Matthew/Adobe)
Center said UT’s then newly named athletic director Steve Patterson made clear that Center suddenly was responsible for more than building a successful tennis program. He was to be a "fundraiser first and coach second" and he would need to find donors to fund a new tennis facility. Patterson admitted to SI that he wanted his coaches to find donors and said the department was "$15 million in the red" when he started in 2013, though he denies any knowledge of the false tennis recruitment.
Center said he knew he would be "considered a team player" if he let in the son of a Silicon Valley magnate. And sure enough, Schaepe immediately began pulling out his wallet, donating $100,000 to UT tennis and a six-figure check to the school's communication program.
"I never entered this as a way to profit. This was a fundraising mission where I made a terrible mistake at the end,"
Center said.
Months after Schaepe's son was admitted, Center agreed to meet Singer at the Austin airport and found himself accepting a backpack filled with $60,000 in cash meant for him, personally. He said he immediately knew he had made a mistake. He told SI “I put the money in my basement and gave most of it away.”
“Why did I do it?” Center told Sports Illustrated. "I go to bed and wake up each day asking myself the same question. I had to convince myself that I somehow deserved the money."
Once in court, Center showed texts with UT's compliance official and mentioned Chris Plonsky, a department executive involved in "overseeing men’s tennis, compliance, academic support (which generates letters of intent) and the Longhorn Foundation," according to SI.
“I knew I had to answer for my guilt,” Center said. “But I was like, 'Man, schools are going to get hammered.'"'
But Center was the only Longhorn to go down for the crimes. “I was no rogue actor,” Center said. “And this wasn’t my word against their word. There were signatures that went along with it. That’s the system... There wasn’t one point in the process where I thought people wanted to learn the whole truth.”
Back at home in Austin, Center watched as actress Felicity Huffman served just eleven days for her part in the scandal. Some served up to five months; others simply paid a fine, and others, like Singer, await sentencing.
And because the prosecution chose to blame individual coaches, framing schools as victims in the case, universities like UT have received less than a slap on the wrist for their possible involvement.
“I was always taught that actions have consequences,” Center said. “What I’ve come to realize is that, yes, for some people actions absolutely do have consequences. Serious, heavy ones. For others, actions can have no consequences at all.”
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