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All brakes, no gas: Austin FC plummets to bottom of the West in 3-0 loss to Houston Dynamo

Austin FC lost a 3-0 heartbreaker to the Houston Dynamo on Saturday. (Austin FC/Twitter)
Austin FC saw their largest margin of defeat to date as they succumbed to last-place team Houston Dynamo in a 3-0 road loss on Saturday.
Both teams were tied for last in the West prior to the match, but the Dynamo stole the show in the "battle for the basement" match as Houston star Darwin Quintero struck with a goal in the first minute of play. The goal proved fateful for a sputtering Austin team as they gave up their quickest goal to date.
While Austin went without a shot on goal for the first half, a speedy Houston offense ran circles around the Verde back line. In the 24th minute, the Dynamos' Fafa Picault got the better of Austin defender Julio Cascante and forced keeper Brad Stuver out of the box to double the lead. He would strike once more in the 64th minute with a fast break and similar shot to the bottom right corner to end the match 3-0 Houston.
Austin lacked the fire needed for Texas Derby rivalry matches for much of the game. Center back Julio Cascante and midfielder Daniel Pereira both saw mistakes that resulted in goals, and Pereira was swapped for defensive midfielder Sebastian Berhalter to finish the match.
Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff said he was disappointed in Pereira and other players' responses to the ball, giving hints that more help was needed to solve the team's woes.
"It's unacceptable, completely unacceptable," Wolff said. "It was never going to be easy, but it doesn't have to be this damn hard."
Fellow midfielder and Captain Alex Ring saw the first shot on goal for the club in the 53rd minute of play, but both he and Designated Player Cecilio Dominguez' efforts were thwarted as home team Houston snapped their 16-game winless streak.
The loss comes as cracks begin to surface in Austin FC's midfield and back line and ends a two-match scoring streak for the team. With the defeat, Austin drops to second to last in the MLS standings.
Austin FC will look to right the ship once again with a home match against West Coast giants LAFC at 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
64' Fafa takes home a second goal
FAFA'S ON FIRE, YOUR DEFENSE IS TERRIFIED pic.twitter.com/m6rZdQB7iU
— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) September 12, 2021
Just as Austin seemed to be regaining confidence, Picault once again shut it down with a fast break that ended in another Houston goal. The goal came just seconds after Cecilio Dominguez's shot nearly gave Austin FC their first goal of the match, but the ball instead pinballed straight past Stuver's hands. Austin is now down 3-0 with less than 30 minutes to go.
46' Wolff makes lineup changes
46' | A couple #AustinFC substitutions.
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) September 12, 2021
➡️ Sebastian Berhalter
⬅️ Dani Pereira
➡️ Rodney Redes
⬅️ Tomás Pochettino pic.twitter.com/8MgN5IG5Fp
The team is looking to strike a much different tone for their second half, Wolff has made a few lineup changes to get that spark going.
Midfielder Dani Pereira is paying for his lack of hustle in that fateful first-minute goal, and he'll be replaced by a young Sebastian Berhalter to take on a role as defensive midfielder. He'll be looking to curb the likes of Darwin Quintero and Fafa Picault on the pitch.
A more interesting decision by Wolff has been to take DP Tomas Pochettino off the pitch even as he produced some of the closest shots of the match on the pitch. He'll be replaced by Rodney Redes, who will look to prove himself with his first regular season goal.
24' Austin gives up second goal
THE GAZELLE DOES IT AGAIN.
— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) September 12, 2021
2-0 to the good guys 🤘 pic.twitter.com/LZYrVRVfem
Austin is entering a new low this match, and that comes after a 5-3 loss to FC Dallas and lackluster performance in Vancouver.
Houston's Fafa Picault gets the better of Verde and Black defender Julio Cascante and forces Stuver out of the box for an easy shot in the bottom right corner of goal. The goal continues a pattern of slow reactions in Austin's defense as they are left alone time and time again in the match.
Austin will need to find their spark if the wish to keep their dignity against the last-place team in the league.
1' Houston scores first
— Eric Goodman (@Goodman) September 12, 2021
Much to the chagrin of Austin FC Head Coach Josh Wolff, it was Houston who struck first on their home turf. Austin FC gave up their quickest goal of the season despite keeper Brad Stuver's best efforts as Houston's Darwin Quintero and Griffin Dorsey each took a shot on goal in the first minute of play. Stuver deflects Dorsey's ball, but the block lands in the goal itself as Austin falls to a 1-0 deficit.
Starting lineup
Ready to take the pitch against Houston.#AustinFC x @YETICoolerspic.twitter.com/Q3j8Xn9GhA
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) September 11, 2021
Veteran center back Matt Besler is out on concussion protocol, and in his stead is young powerhouse Jhohan Romana. While Romana has seen some shining moments in his first MLS season, he and fellow back Julio Cascante have seen some stumbles as the team gave up more goals than usual this first match.
Daniel Pereira is back in the middle, while teammate Diego Fagundez has moved up to the wing alongside newcomer Sebastian Driussi. Much like he was before Driussi's debut, Designated Player Cecilio Dominguez will top the lineup in the foward position tonight.
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Popular
As summer temperatures continue to increase, so does Austin's "Party Island"—a hundreds-strong army of kayakers and paddle boarders who gather each weekend in the middle of Lady Bird Lake.
Born from the pandemic, the swarm of paddleboarding partiers has continued to grow each summer and can be seen from the nearby Lamar Boulevard Bridge. And while "Party Island" certainly lives up to one half of its name, it's not actually an island at all: instead, it's located at a shallow sandbar near Lou Neff Point.
With beers, burgers from portable grills and even DJ turntables in hand, more friends and strangers continue to beat the heat in new ways at the distinct Austin hangout.
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- Photo story: Austin's 'Party Island' on Lady Bird Lake - austonia ›
(Pexels)
If you are a committed, grunge-wearing resident of the Pacific Northwest, it is easy–almost automatic–to look at Texas as an extraordinarily dry, hot and culturally oppressive place that is better to avoid, especially in the summer. Our two granddaughters live with their parents in Portland.
Recently we decided to take the older girl, who is 15, to Dallas. Setting aside the summer heat, a Portlander can adjust to the vibes of Austin without effort. So let’s take Texas with all of its excesses straight up. Dallas, here we come.
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.