Red-hot Austin FC stops league-leading LA Galaxy 2-0

Austin FC is the first team this season to shut out the Galaxy and now Verde and Black have won four out of their last five matches. It's the first loss of the season for the Galaxy to a team outside of Los Angeles.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Two first-half goals and an outstanding defensive effort lifted Austin FC to a 2-0 win over the league-leading LA Galaxy on Saturday at Q2 Stadium.

Austin FC is the first team this season to shut out the Galaxy and now Verde and Black have won four out of their last five matches. It's the first loss of the season for the Galaxy to a team outside of Los Angeles.

"It was a very complete performance from our guys," head coach Josh Wolff said. "We've focused on a lot of different things, and we knew exactly what we needed to do to stress them (the LA Galaxy). They had vulnerabilities and we exploited them."

Diego Rubio got Austin on the board in the seventh minute. Jadier Obrian slipped a pass behind a couple of defenders to Rubio on a give-and-go, and then Rubio deftly slid it across the face of goal by Galaxy goalkeeper John McCarthy. It was Rubio's third goal of the season, and Wolff was pleased to see him get rewarded with the work he's put in.

"Diego has been so good in these games, and not to get the rewards maybe he deserves in these games, he definitely gets the game ball," Wolff said. "He plays the game inside the game and has a real smell and sniff for how to provoke the opponent. He does it all the time."

Obrian added to Austin's lead in the 17th minute from a terrific long ball from Alex Ring. Ring won the ball with a great tackle on Austin's end of the field, and after briefly surveying the field, he unleashed a perfect pass to hit Obrian streaking down the field. Obrian then took on McCarthy and fired a shot from a similar angle that Rubio scored into the net.

Austin goalkeeper Brad Stuver took it from there, making five saves to claim his second consecutive clean sheet. Stuver needed every bit of his 6-foot-3 frame to stop a Riqui Puig shot just before halftime, laying out to deflect Puig's rocket from about 25 yards away. That was the Galaxy's best chance of the match as Austin played some of its best defense of the season to keep one of the league's best attacking teams off the scoreboard.

Wolff said the work put in during preseason training showed up against the dynamic Galaxy attack.

"We've had flexibility in our structure and it has to hold up in games for the players to get that validation," Wolff said. "We've shown maturity there. We did a good job clogging it up inside and transitioned extremely well. Our lines were shifting well, they were quite compact, and we were dueling very well."

The Galaxy was without its top goal-scorer Dejan Joveljic due to an injury. Puig and Gabriel Pec each had two shots on target. The Galaxy outshot Austin 17-9 overall but both clubs had five on target. Los Angeles held 54% of the possession, most of it in the second half trying to rally from the deficit, and had 1.1 expected goals to Austin's 0.9.

While on their current hot streak, Austin moved from the bottom portion of the Western Conference table to three points off the top spot. With 15 points in the first 10 matches this season, Austin could stay tied for third in the conference depending on how Real Salt Lake and Colorado fare Saturday.

Despite still having a thin roster, Wolff said the team can compete against anybody. They certainly proved it by taking out the conference's leader, but don't expect them to rest on their laurels.

"To this day, we still can't play 11s against each other. We utilize the ATX II players to do that," he said. "We're going to war with what we have now each and every game, and we've put ourselves in position to win most of them. We've got to keep improving. There's nothing to rest on right now — absolutely nothing."