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Austin FC lost 2-1 Saturday in their first match abroad against the Vancouver Whitecaps. (Austin FC/Twitter)
In a tale of two halves, Austin FC saw a deja vu moment in a road match against the Vancouver Whitecaps as they failed to curb a two-goal comeback from the home team as they lost 2-1 Saturday night.
With the goal, Austin begins a two-match losing streak after their first match abroad while Vancouver reached a ten-match undefeated streak.
Despite the scoreboard, it was Austin who held the advantage over the home team in the first half as triple threat Designated Players Sebastian Driussi, Tomas Pochettino and Cecilio Dominguez work together to get the first goal.
Pochettino passed the ball to himself to move up the pitch, sending the ball to Dominguez before Driussi connected with a deliberate bouncing header for his second goal with the team to finish the first half.
But Austin handed the reins to Vancouver in the second half of play. After a series of errors from Austin FC defenders, Vancouver'sDéiber Caicedo and Érik Godoy score on a header and deflection to win the match. The goals came despite efforts from Austin FC keeper Brad Stuver, who tallied six saves in the match.
Still at the bottom of their conference, Austin will look to capitalize on a "battle for the basement" match as they face off against rivals Houston Dynamo in Houston on Saturday, September 11.
Here were the biggest plays of the match:
83' Vancouver tallies a 2-1 lead
GUYS!!! MANIFESTATIONS WORK!!!
— Sarita Patel - 'Caps Club Reporter (@VWFC_reporter) September 5, 2021
Whitecaps up 2-1 after Deiber Caicedo nets one in the 83’!!!
LETS GOOOOO!!! @WhitecapsFC | #VWFCpic.twitter.com/hTViVYl0a6
A series of errors, including a slow reaction from Jhohan Romana, leads the Whitecaps to a 2-1 late-match lead after Brad Stuver blocks a shot but is unable to block a deflection scored by the Whitecaps' Déiber Caicedo. Looks like it could be a tale of two halves as the scoresheet once again resembles the outcome from their last match against Vancouver.
70' Vancouver ties it up
Godoy returns the favor with a header of his own! 😤
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 5, 2021
And #VWFC levels it! pic.twitter.com/E0YTBrArfy
Just as Austin seemed to be regaining balance in the match, Vancouver's Érik Godoy sends a header into goal to tie the match 1-1.
In response, Austin newcomer Moussa Djitte and Jared Stroud come in for Dominguez and Driussi to bring some fresh legs onto the pitch.
62' Stuver keeps Vancouver at bay
Vancouver meets the wall, @brad_stuver. ✋ pic.twitter.com/u9HmtPMeeg
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) September 5, 2021
Just after keeping Vancouver's first good shot out of goal, Stuver blocks not one, but two shots in a row from separate sides of the net as he wins a one-on-one standoff with the Whitecaps' Brian White. Stuver is back in top form after a shakier performance against FC Dallas.
59' Austin makes their first sub
As the Vancouver Whitecaps begin to take their signature second-half control, Austin FC makes their first move towards a defensively-minded lineup as center back Jhohan Romana goes in for forward Jon Gallagher.
A minute later, Brad Stuver just chips a shot by Vancouver's Florian Jungwirth over the net as the Whitecaps tally their first shot on goal of the match. Vancouver has the upper hand as they attempt to repeat their 2-1 win over Austin in August.
45+' Austin FC scores!
A header from Sebastián Driussi puts #AustinFC up 1-0 in the final moments of the first half! pic.twitter.com/J6UZEtlZ2G
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 5, 2021
With one goal and three assists, Sebastian Driussi's already racked up stats with new team Austin FC, and he just added new fuel to the fire as he scored his second goal for the team in the final minutes of the first half.
The goal was a tale of three DPs as Designated Player Tomas Pochettino passed the ball to himself to move up the pitch, sending it to Cecilio Dominguez before Driussi connected with a deliberate bouncing header into goal.
Austin FC finished the half with a 1-0 lead in a half that saw no shots on goal from home team Vancouver.
7' Fagundez receives a yellow card
Go time from Vancouver. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/qyxel7Ay4b
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) September 4, 2021
Just as they did last week with a Julio Cascante goal, Austin FC made the first scoring attempt as Austin got the first shot on goal in the first minute of play.
As both teams battle with what seems to be an especially physical match on Vancouver's artificial turf, midfielder Diego Fagundez receives a yellow card in the seventh minute of play. Fagundez, who often makes a difference on both sides of the ball, will need to tread a bit more lightly if he's to stay in the match.
Starting lineup
Tonight's Starting 1️⃣1️⃣ versus @WhitecapsFC. 👊#AustinFC x @YETICoolerspic.twitter.com/KbVUsG0Z4x
— Austin FC (@AustinFC) September 4, 2021
Head Coach Josh Wolff has brought Hector Jimenez back in the back line, flanked by Julio Cascante, Matt Besler and Nick Lima. All remains the same in the front end with new striker Driussi and Dominguez leading the scoring front, but Jon Gallagher has been put back in for midfielder Daniel Pereira.
As always, Brad Stuver is in goal, Captain Alex Ring leads the middle and hustler Diego Fagundez is in the mix.
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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.