There's been a lot of talk about Austin and their defense, specifically centered around the center back situation. But when we're seeing Centerback play kill us, it's typically the Midfield or Fullbacks that have put us in this situation.
It's extremely glaring when the Centerbacks are making mistakes and giving up goals. It causes you to ridicule them with cusswords, but although that singular defensive play may have been poor, they are the last line of defense. They get stuck in these positions, defending perilously not because of their actions but because of the rest of the team.
This defense has never been particularly great.urUr first year was abysmal, and last year was better, but still porous. When it is in trouble, it's almost always caused by poor play from the Midfield or Fullback. Last night, this was on full exhibition. Pereira, Wolff and Gallagher were elite last night. Stopping attacks and turning them into the counter. They did it over and over and over and over. Pereira was intercepting EVERYTHING in the defensive third. Gallagher and Wolff both scored BANGERZ. When they play like that, we are really formidable.
BUT...
There's one more Fullback spot, and I don't trust any of the other guys. Lima, and Jimminez cost us that game against Violette. Zan was awful tonight. Defensively, he miss-marked header after header. Passes went loose and gave RSL most of their looks in the first half. See the one below:
I counted about 4-5 mistakes like this from Kolminic. You see Wolff give the ball up here (one of his few mistakes) and you see how quickly a team can destroy us and press us. Even with the ball back, we're shaky and Kolminic falls apart. He gives the ball up trying to draw a foul that's not a foul. Then he gets it back, and passes it to a wide open player. This leads to the only RSL goal, which was ALSO caused by Kolmanic, who doesn't mark his man on the header. He was really poor tracking the ball in the air defensively in this one. It's not the first time. He left a St. Louis player entirely open for a header in our first game.
I can think of about 25 times Lima has turned it over like this as well. Lundkvist hasn't shown much when he's been out here. After last year, we needed to bulk up at the Fullback spot, and I don't think we've fully addressed this. If we want to be elite, we need to address this spot. The Centerback pairing of Leo and Ring is competent, even good. But when you leave your defense out to dry like this, it doesn't matter how good they are. This is and will be our weak point going forward. Until the front office addresses this seriously, we'll continue to have issues defending.
Other Observations
Druissi has been just a hair off this season. He's so talented, that it doesn't matter. He was the best player on the pitch today. No doubt. Sorry everyone else, but his score won't reflect that because he's been just about an inch off on EVERYTHING. This will not be the case for much longer. We're going to explode on some team offensively. It's bubbling. Rigoni is the same way right now. I would bet this comes at the expense of Violette on Tuesday. I mean, just look at this:
INCHES AWAY! He's literally becoming a snake. So slithery. So sexy. Watch out league.
Gallagher is going to be an All-Star at this rate. He's been perfect all season, with the banger to match. People will grace him with praise for his forward skill, but this man is elite defensively. This play is a winning play, and he makes dozens of them in this game. Mo Edu LOVED this play, and rightfully so (Mo is the best color guy, and this announcing pair was wonderfull. Well done Apple):
Our midfield was so good in this game. I'm only allowed like 3 f-bombs now, and I'm going to use them all here. Wolff and Pereira were so FUCKING, FUCKING, FUCKING good. I've already elaborated on how well Wolff has looked in spurts, and he put it all together in this one. But Pereira was even better. He was everywhere. FotMob (again, stats are such a poor way to interact with soccer) only registered TWO interceptions. I counted at least eight. He was in on every cross, deflecting any pass in the box. He was incredible. And, well, we just wanna see this play again don't we?
Finlay was a ghost. Nothing from him the whole game. Fagundez came on and was pretty poor as well. He was completely unresponsive defensively and sloppy with his passes. With Rigoni missing his chances, I think the worst position we have right now is actually our attacking wings. No one has shown much effort here. Centerback has been much maligned, but Leo has been amazing and if our wings were playing better, we'd be posting scores like 3-0, 3-3. Like I mentioned above, I expect an onslaught offensively, but the wing play worries me.