Welcome to Capital City Soccer’s Verde Roundup! Here are some of the biggest midweek stories to hold you over until matchday.
Fear not gentle readers, the international break is almost over.
Summer Blockbuster: MLS and Apple complete 10-year, $2.5 billion media rights deal. In 2023, every single live MLS match — and select MLS NEXT Pro and MLS NEXT games — can be streamed on the Apple TV app. For season ticket holders, the new MLS streaming service will be included as part of their season ticket packages. Non-STH fans can subscribe on the Apple TV app for $14.99/mo., and Apple TV+ subscribers can sign up at a special price of $12.99/mo. MLS Commish Don Garber Q&A about the deal with Apple | Pro Soccer Wire
Extratime throws out Austin FC’s name as a good landing spot for MLS free agent & USNMT defender Aaron Long. In this week’s pod, they panned the Verde’s current center back tandem and pointed to the 29-year-old NY Red Bulls defender as the missing piece for Austin. The ETR Crüe even gets into how ATX could pick up Long without a Zimmerman-type designated player contract.
Surprise! Austin FC unveiled its 23rd pre-match jersey for 2022. We kid. The Adidas “Unity Jersey” is the latest top to drop. You may remember seeing that same colorful floral arrangement in the 2022 MLS match ball. By the response to our impromptu Twitter thumbs up/down poll, this one appears to pass the sniff test among Los Verdes. Check out our post for more about this flower jersey and other new Austin FC shirts.
Official Watch Party announcement: This week’s venue is Blacksheep Lodge for Saturday’s match vs CF Montreal. We’re ready to get back to watching some Austin FC soccer after that looooong international break, how about you? Kick-off is 6:30pm on The CW Austin, AustinFC.com, and UnivisionAustin.com. Check out our Verde viewing watch party guide for more info.
MLS teamed up with next-generation fantasy game Sorare and we wrote a whole thing about it. Honestly, we love the concept of forming a fantasy team with our favorite Austin FC players and European footballers to take on other Sorare managers in weekly 5v5 matches.
Wolff’s Words of the Week
Here’s what Coach Wolff said in the midweek presser on June 15.
While he praised CF Montreal and their success, he said “We certainly see some gaps we can take advantage of when we have the ball.” On training during the break “Coming into training these past two weeks, we worked on transitions. Both sides of the ball have been part of it. But still revolving around our game model.” On Dani Pereira’s playing status “The paperwork and those things seem to be heading in a good direction. We don’t know if he’s in or out yet.” On Cecilio’s playing status “He’s competing. He’s doing a good job in training, along with everyone else…it’s competitive. It’s tough to crack into the 11…break into the 20, but he’s working hard. We’ll continue to monitor it.” On Seba Driussi’s health “He’s doing okay. He’s taken a beating. We’ve got to find ways to alleviate some of that. He’s a warrior. Physically, he’s doing okay.” On looking ahead to the upcoming summer transfer window “Yes. Yes. Absolutely. We’ll always look to make this roster better.”
Training Scenes
Coming back from the break ready for CF Montreal.
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