Hold onto your hats, we have another mid-week game. This time Austin Bold will travel to Chukchansi Park to take on the Foxes on Wednesday, May 22nd at 7:30 P.M.

It will be multi-cultural night, I don’t know exactly what that theme entails, but hopefully, it means more people and great food? Maybe some nice music?

Some Time Off

After last weeks win against El Farolito in the U.S. Open Cup we had some time off before this Wednesday’s game against the Austin Bold. The team played a grueling schedule of three matches in seven days – so they should be rested now after seven days off from a game.

That rest will be essential because we play four games in eleven days over this next stretch. Three games in the USL and one in the USOC against Sacramento. I am sure Smith is figuring out how he is going to be rotating players, and thinking about which games he will play and rest players like Johnson and Caffa.

After our last week of play, we managed three points in two – which left us sitting in third with at least a game in hand. There will be another round of matches before our Wednesday game, so we can see how the table shakes out as the weekend goes on. (On Tuesday we are in 5th with 1-3 games in hand)

Boring Boring Austin

The Bold is a new team in the USL. The predictions of how their season would turn out were somewhat scattered, but they are handling themselves very well. Austin is currently sitting in 8th place and have a 4-3-3 record.

Austin is an interesting team because in 10 games they have only conceded 9 goals (one less than us), but they have also only scored 10(we have scored 16 so far). It makes for very low scorelines in many of their games, and a lot of their wins are by a single goal margin – in contrast, when we win its almost always by at least two goals.

While the way Austin play may be boring, it’s effective. They have managed to keep other teams from scoring and eke out just enough goals to win or draw at least half of their matches. That’s probably dangerous for us considering our home record this season – we need to make sure we score early, and that we score more than once. Austin is unlikely to score more than we will.

Who to Watch For

In their last two matches, Austin has managed four goals and let in three. Their team’s top goal scorers are Kleber(#9) who has scored three in six games, and Andre Lima(#99) who has scored three in ten games. These two players have scored 60% of all Austin’s goals, and that means we need to keep them quiet.

In midfield #8 Xavier Baez is one of their key players for creating chances. He has created twelve chances in ten games, leading their team. He has a passing accuracy of 81% and tends to get the ball forward. He does not have any assists, and no one on the team has more than a single assist – probably accounting for their low goalscoring record.

Austin’s defense is spectacular – their defensive stats are much more impressive than their offensive stats. In particular players like Jermain Taylor (#4) and Sean McFarlane (#17) stand out for their clearance numbers, tackles, and interceptions. They provide a lot of cover to this low-scoring team, and it will be up to our offense to break them down.

Something else to note, nearly every single Austin goal has come from in the box. They have just a single penalty, and as a team, they are sitting at a 10.9% conversion rate. If we can crowd them out of our box and hit them on the counter, I think we have a high chance of getting three points. We need to rely somewhat on speed, and so we will probably look to players like Ellis-Hayden, Casillas, Martin, Jackson, and Johnson to bring it down the wings and send it in to be scored.

Predictions

I think we have a good chance at this game. Austin isn’t a pushover team, they have shown that they can grind out a win. We aren’t always on top of our home form, this season that has been the biggest surprise, but I think we can take Austin down.

I see 2-0 for the Foxes.

#SomosZorros