Against Portland they did not, collecting almost 70% possession (part of this was the Timbers just tapping out), completing over 90% of their passes and funneling a great deal of both through Fagundez and DP Cecilio Dominguez, as soon as again operating as a false 9, in the half-spaces. Portland might not maintain.

Ownership is, for a lot of teams, an overrated statistic– one that doesnt really matter. Austin are not one of those groups; belongings matters for them a lot.

Austin FC lastly left the schneid in the house, and did so in a big way with a dominant, relentless 4-1 win over Portland on Thursday night. It was the Verdes very first win in precisely 2 months, and was the very first time in an excellent long while they appeared like the group I kinda sorta believed they would end up being back in April when they came out of the gates playing great ball.

Fagundez, when hes on the wing, loves to drop into those spots and become an auxiliary playmaker, as does Dominguez. Both are much less direct than the other, more conventional choices, and by altering the performance of those areas instead of the shape (it was still a 4-3-3 from Austin), Wolff had the ability to get his team to create continuous central midfield overloads that shredded the visitors. Just take a look at their network passing chart, used Opta data: