Wasatch Soccer Sentinel
The opener from Austin was absolutely not ideal from an RSL perspective. Sure, RSL erased the defeat by the end of the match, but I do not love watching a set piece defense that looks unresponsive to the conditions imposed by the opposition. Austin went for a straightforward overload against RSL’s line with a wide in-swinging cross from deep, placing more players at the far post than at the near one. That line was deep, and the disadvantage was that Austin had plenty of space to operate. In the end, Sergi Solans has to try to defend against two players, even though one breaks off. In the end, he just doesn’t anticipate Jon Bell’s leap, and Bell places a header to the far post.
It’s interesting, though. The shot looks extremely manageable, and RSL goalkeeper Rafa Cabral doesn’t even really make a move to pick up the relatively slow shot. There’s some thinking that his vision was impeded by an offside player — I could see the argument, but I do think he can see the ball well enough here, especially given his obvious skillset. The ball even takes a bounce, but Cabral sort of watches it go in. The interesting thing here is that Cabral later performs some real feats of shot-stopping, and this one looked considerably easier to stop. He just watched it bounce in. I think this is both a defensive lapse and a goalkeeping lapse, if we’re being totally honest. I won’t knock Cabral for it, because he kept RSL in the game several times, but I didn’t like the look of it.
Despite some poor first-half set piece defending that led to conceding the opener, RSL leveled just minutes later scoring a goal through an entirely sloppy defensive lapse from Austin. Noel Caliskan celebrated like it was his goal, which is fair enough, I suppose. His run was genuinely good to pick up a pass from Juanma Sanabria, and his cross was well-placed enough to be in that danger zone. Why exactly Austin’s Oleksandr Svatok swung awkwardly at it, putting the ball in his own net, is beyond me. I suppose it’s just a lack of awareness, unaware a player is behind him in a good position to legitimately clear.
Of course, we should recognize that Caliskan’s cross was good — it just wasn’t that dangerous, mostly because there wasn’t a really a player running in to get involved. Aiden Hezarkhani makes a good run toward Caliskan, who is entitled to opt for the pass in that situation. Sergi Solans and Zavier Gozo are both making back post runs, and Morgan Guilavogui is near the top of the box. I’m glad this resulted in a goal, because there wasn’t much about the setup that demanded one.
The rest of the first half was reasonably dire from an RSL chance creation perspective. Gozo had a difficult shot from wide that was parried away, and Morgan Guilavogui won a header in a strong position before placing his shot at Austin’s Brad Stuver. Aside from that, we didn’t see much. Austin waited until the 44th minute to provide any peril, with Rafa Cabral stopping two good shots. Both were placed largely at the goalkeeper, but his reactions were still excellent to keep the game level.
The second half saw a few more interesting RSL opportunities emerging. Sergi Solans had two consecutive opportunities parried by Stuver. It looks more and more like Solans has secured a starting position with his performances, and he’s leading the line better than any RSL striker in the last year and a half. He’s pairing well with the players around him, and it’s playing well into Morgan Guilavogui’s tendency to play a deep-lying forward role.
Diego Luna and Victor Olatunji emerged midway through the second half, with Luna looking much like his old self, though it took about 10 minutes for him to really start that rapid pass-and-move pattern that defines his best attacks.
Stijn Spierings, on for an injured Griffin Dillon (a shame to see him come off injured in his first MLS start, though we’ll hope that it was more precautionary than anything), changed the dynamic — and the scoreline — late on after a low, bouncing shot from distance that beat Stuver. It was a lovely little strike, and it was apparently the fastest a debuting RSL player has scored a goal. That’s a pretty spectacular thing.
