If you are unfamiliar with the concept of The False 9’s La Murga Report, click here.
Friends, we think it’s late enough in the season that you should know exactly how the Murga Report sausage is made, so to speak.
The most important thing to note is that The False 9 is not part of the accredited media landscape of Austin FC (shocking, I know). That means we don’t get press passes, so the Murga Report is not produced in the comfortable (but reportedly poorly air-conditioned) press box on game day as your scribes furiously type away on laptops. In fact, the only time we’ve been up there was on a stadium tour. Nay, we are in the Supporters’ Section every week, using the Notes app of a very old iPhone to keep track of the songs as they are played. And when you’re in the South End for the kind of game that happened on Saturday night, sometimes journalistic rigor flies out the window.
You see, the Supporters’ Section reached a crescendo circa the 75th minute of Saturday’s game, when Austin was down 3-2 and chasing an equalizer. This crescendo was maintained for the remaining 25 minutes (including stoppage time). We don’t think Saturday night recorded the single loudest moment in McKalla history, but we have never heard the entire stadium maintain a level of enthusiasm for that long. For almost a full half hour, we were in ecstasy.
If you research its etymology, you will find that the word “ecstasy” comes from the Greek ekstasis which means “to stand outside oneself.” In other words, experiencing true ecstasy is to have an out-of-body experience. And we swear upon all that we hold dear that this is what happened to us between the time that Kolmanic subbed on and the final whistle. We were stripped bare of any notion of the individual. We gave ourselves over to the pulsating, undulating, primordial collective that was trying to force a positive result out of the match. We screamed. We booed the ref. We joined arms during “Cuervos.” But at no point did we ever think “wait, there is a journalistic duty that we should be performing now vis-à-vis logging the next song in the Notes app of our shitty iPhone.”
This is all a very long-winded way of saying that, for the first time ever, we had to watch the replay of the match to complete this week’s Murga Report. Though we still made a half-hearted attempt to keep track of things when the match became tense, as soon as Hoesen banged in the equalizer we just didn’t care. We gave ourselves fully to the barbaric yawp of of MLS After Dark and let our fastidious note-taking fall by the wayside. Thank God for ESPN+. Let’s get to the numbers.
What Songs Were Played, and How Many Times?
Random thoughts: Despite video evidence to the contrary, we still have no recollection of “Is This Love?” being performed during the run of play. But we guess that’s the mark of a good comedown song. For the second week in a row, Murga played “Pepas” three times. It may not end up as the Song of the Year, but it has undoubtedly been the Song of the Summer.
What Songs Were Playing When Austin Scored
Random thoughts: It was easy to overlook at the time, but Austin scored its first goal during the second round of whoooooaaa-whoooaaas in “Cuervos,” which is rad as hell. This is the second week in a row where “Dale ATX” contributed to a goal. Both “Reloco Remamado” and “Verde Submarine” have been in wooden spoon contention for a while, and though Saturday’s performance may not have guaranteed their safety it was definitely a step in the right direction.
What Songs Were Playing When Kansas City Scored
Random thoughts: Oh dear, sweet “Ole Ole Ola.” You peaked too soon, honey. Five goals scored in your first five matches, and goose eggs in the following nine (with three goals against). Here’s a chart of your season-long net success percentage week over week:
Season Totals
Final Thoughts
WHAT IS HAPPENING? Do we now have a three-way tie for the lead (non-moment of silence division)? And one of the leaders is the aforementioned Song of the Summer and another is the reason we started writing this stupid column in the first place? Cue the Ian Darke sound byte, because you could not write a script like this. It seemed mathematically unfathomable that we could end the season with a tie for Song of the Year, but now we’re going to have to come up with some sort of tiebreaking procedure. We’ll ruminate on that in the coming weeks.
Oh, and no one scored during “Dale Austin.”
H.E. Pennypacker
H.E. Pennypacker spends far too much time thinking about Austin FC, much to the consternation of his friends, family, and employers. He could really go for a sandwich right about now.