The False Nine Mailbag

It’s been a trying time in Austin FC fandom, and not just because of the results on the pitch, so we thought it would be a good time to open up the mailbag and listen to our readers.

Who else would be keeping track of Wolff’s shirt color? The Striker? Moontower? We Are Austin TV? This is our wheelhouse and the kind of coverage you should be able to expect from the same site that tracks La Murga’s chants.

For those of you new to Austin FC, last season there was a noticeable lack of Verde in Josh Wolff’s wardrobe (almost as little as in the “Verde” Store). This fan frustration eventually culminated in The Striker’s Phil West asking him about it during a press conference, and conspicuously after that Wolff began to wear Verde or Verde adjacent shirts on the sideline. Here’s the breakdown of Austin FC’s record based on Wolff’s shirt color (W-L-T)*

Verde: 5-3-1
Non-Verde: 10-17-5

This seems like clear evidence that Wolff should wear more Verde, but as we delved deeper into our research, a shocking fact came about: When Wolff wears Sea Foam (or as we call it “not quite Verde”) the team is an astounding 5-1-1.

Was our bullying of Coach Wolff misguided? No, we need to expand it.

*Note that we are unable to find pictures or video from three matches (@Colorado on 9/29,2021, Vs. Minnesota on 10/16/2021, and @Portland on 11/7/2021). If you have evidence of his shirt color, please let us know by emailing us at TheFalseNineTX@gmail.com.

Sit back everyone, and let me remind you of the days of yore, days of long ago, before Austin FC had ever played a match. Andrew Tarbell was coming off of starting and winning two playoff matches for Columbus in 2020, and when he came to Austin, he was the presumed starter by everyone who was writing about the team. When Austin played Houston in “The Match of Verde Hill,” Stuver being the starter was a surprise. His play in recent weeks is a reminder that Tarbell is no slouch, and he’s one of the better back ups in the league.

That being said, we all know and love Brad Stuver, he’s the kind of player and person you want to root for. Forever and always #TeamStuver

Is Sandy, UT just Frisco with mountains?

Sent in by: Lewis McClarkson

Sandy, UT does have a lot of similarities to Frisco, Texas. Both are sprawling surburbs that are not urban in any way, shape or form. They both have faux historical sites and random commercial developments near their stadiums.

However, we’ll take Sandy over Frisco for three reasons

1. The aforementioned mountains and the much drier climate
2. The people are way nicer in Utah (but not just in that LDS way)
3. They actually put a roof over their stadium, a technology that has not made it into the outskirts of Dallas yet

Even if something can’t be perceived immediately, it absolutely happens, how else would we ever know that Houston Dynamo played a match?

Onto the hot topic of Owen’s breakthrough into the squad. Sir Matt Busby once said about playing young players “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough.” Those of us who have seen him play in friendlies or for the Academy know he’s a player. He’s got good technical skills and has good vision, but the biggest surprise of his emergence on the right wing is that we’d only seen him deployed centrally before. Considering Austin’s lack of productive wing depth, it makes sense to use a young player to try and bridge that gap, especially one as talented as Owen is. It allows him to play with more space, and we saw the runs he was able to make against Real Salt Lake, providing two chances for Driussi to try and draw the match level in the waning moments.

It’s currently unclear how well this Teen Wolff can play guitar while vansurfing.

There’s a relatively large grey pachyderm in my general vicinity concerning Austin’s wing depth, and I’m going to continue to ignore it to focus on the players who are currently available. Yes, Diego has to start, he’s leading the league in assists, and his passing vision and ability is necessary for the side to have the creativity to score goals. The other wing is where the deficiency is apparent. After a strong start Ethan Finley has not looked good as a starter in subsequent matches, with a particularly poor performance against the Galaxy, and Rodney Redes is…technically a professional soccer player, I guess? Jared Stroud is seemingly in exile, so maybe the solution is to try Jon Gallagher over there as a means of trying to get a current Best XI on the pitch. Speaking of Gallagher…

Praise be to El Pollo

There’s a lot of theories as to why soccer players tend to be the most attractive athletes, it could be the their penchant for intricate hair styles, the general diversity of the rosters, or that soccer kits are more fashionable than what other sports teams wear.

Just look at these atrocities to fashion

The obvious reason why soccer has a seemingly endless of supply of very handsome men on every team is the physical demands of the sport. Not to infringe upon Swoontower’s corner here, #ot-hbmfc (IYKYK), or even the #GallyGals, but Austin, even for a soccer club, has a lot of very handsome men on the team.

The sexiest quality of course, is confidence, this was tweeted out by the club’s official Twitter account, and the caption really should have been: