Austin FC transforms into scoring machine overnight as Sebastian Driussi leads the way

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The clamor will be building soon.

It started bubbling up after the impressive season-opener a week ago and was growing into a full-throated uproar by Sunday night.

The message is clear.

Break up the Austin FC.

What was once a curious fan attraction if novelty act in Year One has suddenly transformed into a full-fledged playoff contender and complete scoring machine in Year Two.

Austin FC followed up a dominant 5-0 blanking of FC Cincinnati with an equally eye-opening 5-1 rout of Inter Miami CF before another full house of 20,738 at Q2 Stadium on a sun-splashed Sunday afternoon.

Ten goals.

That’s how many El Tree has scored in two games.

A perfect 10.

That’s a Major League Soccer record for any team in the league’s 27-year history to start a season. Not too shabby. That’s making a bold statement and offering early validation for a team that made significant changes and added depth and scoring. 

Not only has it found a budding star in last year’s late arrival Sebastián Driussi, it got two second-half goals from newcomer Ethan Finlay as well.

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So you can just forget that troubling inaugural season when it took until the team’s 12th match of the year in a 4-1 crushing of Portland on July 1 to reach 10 goals. It put just six in the net in its first 11 games. Yes the season started earlier this year, but we’re barely into March.

We’ll go ahead and introduce the caveat now.

Austin FC may be a ways from developing into one of the league’s powerhouses. After all, it has raced to a 2-0 record after a pair of home victories against two of the worst franchises in the game. Cincinnati and Miami aren’t very good. Pretty bad, in fact.

But back-to-back wins with five goals in each is impressive for any team, even one a year removed from its status as an expansion club and even if Verde will go up against much, much stronger competition than these two, starting with a road trip to Portland on Saturday.

“I thought tonight was a performance to build on,” said Josh Wolff, a second-year head coach in the MLS. “But we’re not a finished product. It’s much, much harder as we go through the season.”

That’s obvious. So obvious especially away from home that goalkeeper Brad Stuver said the average for a road team is a single point. Austin FC, playing at home where it has won six of its last seven, already has the maximum six points.

Few could have expected Austin FC to make such a robust move this quickly.

More: Austin FC defeats Inter Miami: 3 takeaways from second blowout win for team

A public poll by The Athletic revealed that MLS fans rated Austin FC as the 13th-best franchise in the entire 14-team Western Conference, far removed from the seven-team playoff field. That site’s own staff was a bit kinder, pegging them to finish 11th, ahead of only Salt Lake, San Jose and Houston.

Those two surveys also projected Cincinnati and Miami to finish a lowly 13th and 12th in the East, edging out only expansion team Charlotte, which made its arrival felt with a staggering draw of 74,479 for its home opener against Los Angeles Galaxy at the Bank of America Stadium. Never mind it fell 1-0 and was outshot 21-5 by the Galaxy.

Austin FC can relate. It knows a thing or two about growing pains.

Yet a year later, it’s one of only four MLS clubs to start 2-0. Remember, Atlanta won the MLS Cup in its second year, and LAFC scored the most points in the league in its second season.

And the explosive offense has been a thing to behold. A season after scraping up just 35 goals in 34 matches and suffering 17 blanks and seven other matches with but a single goal, Austin FC has evolved into a real threat in MLS.

Not only is it scoring in droves, it’s getting goals from different personnel, which can only make Austin harder to defend in the future. Five players wearing the lime green have scored a goal, not counting Moussa Djitte’s ricochet kick into the net that was actually given to the Cincinnati’s goal-minder.

More: Midfield may be the engine to chug Austin FC to the playoffs in 2022

Sebastián Driussi, in particular, take a bow.

The man of the match seems to be a man on a mission. The 27-year-old Argentine scored twice on Sunday, including one in traffic off his right foot on a high cross that had a high degree of difficulty. He joined the team late last season and had five goals and now already has put three in the net to stamp himself as one of the best players in this league.

His English isn’t perfect yet, but his soccer is brilliant.

Asked how it felt to have such an impact at Q2, Driussi said, “To be honest, to help the club is always good. In this stadium, I think today we played a heck of a game. We were able to score five goals again at home. I’m happy for the people and for us because we work hard day in and day out.”

Verde spent a year assembling a team from different countries and trying to assimilate them into a cohesive group that could embrace and execute Wolff’s plan.

Austin FC is clearly on the attack, aggressive from the outset, and even more so when it was apparent Miami was going to play conservatively and shoot for a scoreless draw. David Beckham's club has a single goal in two games.

“I mean, it was real clear what Miami’s intentions were,” Wolff said. “That will never be the case for us.”

Well, it’s no longer learning. It’s teaching opponents.

“We weren’t getting enough in the box and creating enough high-quality chances last year,” said Brad Stuver, who has been a steadying influence in light of considerable pressure. “We were still developing a culture and a style of play, but now we get to add layers to the game and get people in the box with varying ways of attack, and it’s paid off.”

And he no longer has to be so stressed out about having to pitch a shutout.

Austin didn’t score in the first two minutes of the game as opposed to the opener against Cincinnati, but it broke through in the 21st minute with Driussi’s first goal on a terrific pass from star Diego Fagúndez on a ball that nearly rolled out of bounds.

Five minutes later, Julio Cascante completed a perfect set piece on a pass from Zan Kolmanic with an easy goal and then leaped into the stands as if he were at Lambeau Field.

The deluge has removed a whole lot of stress.

“We played out of the back too much last year, but we didn’t have three (goals) on the board,” Stuver said. “It’d be 0-0 and we were sticking to our guns. This ability to score goals early gives us little bit more, not leeway, but a little breathing room where one mistake won’t kill us. It’s not like last year when we’d give up a goal and go ‘Oh crap, now what?'"

Instead, they’re scoring in bunches, stoked with confidence, and letting the rest of the league wonder, "Now what?"