Toluca cruises into the Quarterfinals after downing a short-handed Austin FC

Down to ten men since the first half and reduced to nine after a second sending-off in the second, Austin FC spent the night at Sports Illustrated Stadium simply trying to hang on. Toluca booked its spot in the Quarterfinals with a tight 2-0 scoreline that, based on how the match unfolded, could easily have been a much wider margin.

The game changed completely right around the half-hour mark. In the 38th minute, VAR reviewed an initial red card shown to Joseph Rosales and overturned it, but just a minute later, in the 39th, Rosales was sent off anyway on a separate call. Down to ten men and still scoreless, Austin FC weathered the rest of the first half, which ended scoreless at the break despite Toluca's total control of the game.

The second half opened with another blow for the visitors: in the 48th minute, Oleksandr Svatok brought down Jesus Angulo inside the box for a penalty and picked up a yellow card in the process. Helinho made no mistake from the spot, netting the 1-0 in the 52nd minute with a low finish into the right side of the net. Things got even tougher for Austin FC in the 73rd minute, when Ilie Sanchez picked up a second yellow card and left his team with just nine men on the field.

With a two-man advantage for a good chunk of the second half, Toluca kept creating chance after chance, though the second goal took a while to arrive and the final score wound up understating just how much the home side produced.

The numbers behind the dominance

The stats back up what was clear on the field: a Toluca side that controlled possession and piled up attempts against an Austin FC team that, caught between playing a man (then two men) down and needing to defend, could barely generate any danger of its own.

Toluca's 26 shots against Austin FC's mere 8 paint a picture of a match that was one-sided from the visitors' goal on up the field. Based on our post-match estimate calculated using shot location, Toluca generated 3.363 expected goals in the match, compared to 0.901 for Austin FC. That xG gap makes clear the final 2-0 scoreline actually undersold the home side's chances created, something the two red cards against the visitors only partly explain.

Heading into the match, we had projected a 66% win probability for Toluca, a 21% chance of a draw, and just 13% for Austin FC, with expected goals of 2.21 for the home side and 0.91 for the visitors. The final result ended up lining up with that forecast: Toluca won as expected, though the path there came with the added twist of two red cards that made the home team's job considerably easier than anticipated.

What the match leaves behind

Toluca moves forward in the competition after a match it controlled from start to finish, helped along by its opponent playing a man down from the first half onward. For Austin FC, being reduced to nine men on the field and conceding the penalty that opened the scoring sum up a night to forget in which the club could hardly do more than try to limit the damage.