Austin FC hosts FC Dallas in an intrastate rivalry on Sunday night as both teams return to MLS play following three matches in the Leagues Cup.
While it’s Dallas (7-5-6, 27 points) enjoying the better league campaign, Austin (4-9-5, 17 points) is the more in-form side, having earned two wins and a draw with a victory on penalties in their three first-phase tournament matches against Liga MX foes.
Interim Austin manager Davy Arnaud earned those results despite making several lineup changes to give minutes to promising younger players. In his view, none seized the opportunity more than 18-year-old Ervin Torres.
The box-to-box midfielder started all three matches and played 237 minutes while helping to power a Verde squad that conceded only once across its three games.
“Young guys, they’ve earned their minutes, and Ervin has earned his minutes,” Arnaud said after his impressive 85-minute shift in a 1-1 draw with Club America on Thursday night. “And I expect to see a lot more of Ervin for the rest of the year, especially with the way he’s playing.”
Austin’s strong defensive showing against Mexican opposition followed a seven-match stretch (1-5-1) in which it conceded 17 times against MLS opponents to sink to 14th in the Western Conference
Dallas narrowly missed joining Austin in the quarterfinals, losing 3-1 at Toluca in their final group match on Wednesday night after winning their first two at home.
And yet their tournament performance was also an improvement from their first three league matches following the World Cup break, in which they settled for only two points to drop to sixth in the West.
“We’ve got to have a winning mentality,” manager Eric Quill said. “We’ve got to sharpen ourselves up in all phases of the game. Take a good, strong look. Make sure all the details are ironed out for Austin, one game at a time. I don’t think about anything past that.
Maybe most encouragingly, Petar Musa scored for the first time as a starter on Wednesday since his return from the World Cup.
The Croatia international’s 13 MLS goals still easily lead a Dallas side that is prepping for a sixth of nine straight MLS away matches while a construction project continues at their home venue.
–Field Level Media
