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| An investment was made... |
The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...
Thumbnail History
Austin FC came into MLS pretty hot, publicity-wise – look, Matthew McConaughey! He’s got a drum! – the fans showed up with drums of their own (and trumpets) and did “Keep Austin Weird” proud enough. The stadium looks great and there’s something charming about the way they bathe it in green light every time the home team scores (wait for it). The stage looks great, but…
Austin FC came into MLS pretty hot, publicity-wise – look, Matthew McConaughey! He’s got a drum! – the fans showed up with drums of their own (and trumpets) and did “Keep Austin Weird” proud enough. The stadium looks great and there’s something charming about the way they bathe it in green light every time the home team scores (wait for it). The stage looks great, but…
Austin FC threw everyone a head-fake in 2022, when they finished second in the West and made a deep run in the MLS Cup playoffs (semifinals!). Their inaugural-season ringer, Sebastian Driussi, looked like a brilliant buy by their second season, his supporting cast of Maxi Urruti, Ethan Finlay and (particularly) Diego Fagundez combined with him in beautiful, four-part harmony, and the defense was…average, and goalkeeper Brad Stuver did everything he could to keep it that way (“Stuuuuvvv!”); Alex Ring directed traffic in midfield, Julio Cascante played better than he ever did as a Portland Timber: everything was clicking and the future looked bright. My memory's hazy on this - Austin's not a team I follow closely - but 2022 might have been the same season that pundits never stopped talking about how much Austin was over-performing their metrics. Even if that convo wasn't in 2022, having one super-freak of a season in what has otherwise been a short, barren history makes for a fitting way to wrap one's head around this team. Austin didn't make the playoffs in 2021 – no shame in that, debut season, etc. – but, after that 2022 miracle season, they missed again in both 2023 and 2024. They definitely showed better in 2025 (see below), while somehow still presenting as a team stumbling through another lost season. If you bought Austin FC stock after 2022, that would make you the proud owner of a bunch of tulip bulbs no one else wants. That expansion team stench doesn’t always wash off so easily...
2025, Briefly
With a history of scoring woes behind them (they’ve been well under the league average for scoring three times in their five seasons), Austin spent big on two forwards: Brandon Vazquez, called back from Liga MX, and Albanian Myrto Uzuni. The (reported) total investment on those two players came to $22.3 million and it paid out in a total of eleven goals and three assists over a combined total of 3,673 minutes (give or take). Those signings read as ideas from the Grand Academy of Lagado, even at the time (this references the thing about building a house starting with the roof), in that Austin lacked a reliable chance-creation infrastructure to feed them. Sure, they had guys like Osman Bukari, Jon Gallagher and Mikkel Desler (right?) to feed him from wide spaces, plus loose concepts of a plan through the middle in Ilie Sanchez and Daniel Pereira, but both forwards looked more like available options than missing puzzle pieces. Despite fielding the (tied-for) third worst attack in MLS (only DC and Montreal scored fewer goals; going the other way, a couple other teams, Atlanta and RSL, barely scored more), the season came together well enough for Austin: they made the playoffs, even if they exited them quickly, and reached the U.S. Open Cup final (which they lost to Nashville). Moreover, they put together respectable strings of results throughout the season (e.g., three straight wins at the end of March, a 6-2-2 run across all competitions between the end of July and most of September), but they owed virtually all of that success to a good defense and a wobbly Western Conference.
Long-Term Tendencies v Recent Trends
Pull that flying 2022 season out of the sample – when they over-performed wildly on the attacking side – Austin teams have a fairly straightforward history of under-performing offenses and, at least lately (as in 2024 and 2025), competent defenses. The former persists to their detriment, so it’s good to see them show signs of life on the other side.
Players I Still Like/Additions So Far
For anyone asking, “what about Owen Wolff?”, I thought it appropriate to slot him in down here as (arguably) the happiest surprise of Austin’s 2025 season. While I don’t think he has the chops/skill set of a No. 10, 1) he’s young (just 21), and 2) he led Austin on both goals (eight) and assists (seven last year). Bukari did all right, but it looks like he moved over to Poland. I don’t see any other big names on their list of departures (click here, scroll down), at least not so far (e.g., Julio Cascante and Deigo Rubio), which means Stuver and the rest of the D (e.g., Brendan Hines-Ike and Oleksandr Svotak, some sturdy fullbacks) remain available and, for the most part injury-free). I see some reasonable-to-good, if budget-conscious replacements among their additions – e.g., Jon Bell (CB, older than I thought), Joseph Rosales (from Minnesota; good, but missed more minutes in 2025 than I remembered) and, as a potential improvement over Bukari, Jayden Nelson (from Vancouver; always liked the cut of his jib). None of the above openly guarantees improvement, but the moments from 2025 should give Austin fans some hope of a brighter future. Ideally, one with more goals…
Historical Success (/Hysterical Failure)
Total Joy Points: 1
How They Earned Them (& How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 2022
MLS Playoffs Quarterfinals: 2025
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 2025
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| A bold experiment from Lagado. Into what, tho? |
With a history of scoring woes behind them (they’ve been well under the league average for scoring three times in their five seasons), Austin spent big on two forwards: Brandon Vazquez, called back from Liga MX, and Albanian Myrto Uzuni. The (reported) total investment on those two players came to $22.3 million and it paid out in a total of eleven goals and three assists over a combined total of 3,673 minutes (give or take). Those signings read as ideas from the Grand Academy of Lagado, even at the time (this references the thing about building a house starting with the roof), in that Austin lacked a reliable chance-creation infrastructure to feed them. Sure, they had guys like Osman Bukari, Jon Gallagher and Mikkel Desler (right?) to feed him from wide spaces, plus loose concepts of a plan through the middle in Ilie Sanchez and Daniel Pereira, but both forwards looked more like available options than missing puzzle pieces. Despite fielding the (tied-for) third worst attack in MLS (only DC and Montreal scored fewer goals; going the other way, a couple other teams, Atlanta and RSL, barely scored more), the season came together well enough for Austin: they made the playoffs, even if they exited them quickly, and reached the U.S. Open Cup final (which they lost to Nashville). Moreover, they put together respectable strings of results throughout the season (e.g., three straight wins at the end of March, a 6-2-2 run across all competitions between the end of July and most of September), but they owed virtually all of that success to a good defense and a wobbly Western Conference.
Long-Term Tendencies v Recent Trends
Pull that flying 2022 season out of the sample – when they over-performed wildly on the attacking side – Austin teams have a fairly straightforward history of under-performing offenses and, at least lately (as in 2024 and 2025), competent defenses. The former persists to their detriment, so it’s good to see them show signs of life on the other side.
Players I Still Like/Additions So Far
For anyone asking, “what about Owen Wolff?”, I thought it appropriate to slot him in down here as (arguably) the happiest surprise of Austin’s 2025 season. While I don’t think he has the chops/skill set of a No. 10, 1) he’s young (just 21), and 2) he led Austin on both goals (eight) and assists (seven last year). Bukari did all right, but it looks like he moved over to Poland. I don’t see any other big names on their list of departures (click here, scroll down), at least not so far (e.g., Julio Cascante and Deigo Rubio), which means Stuver and the rest of the D (e.g., Brendan Hines-Ike and Oleksandr Svotak, some sturdy fullbacks) remain available and, for the most part injury-free). I see some reasonable-to-good, if budget-conscious replacements among their additions – e.g., Jon Bell (CB, older than I thought), Joseph Rosales (from Minnesota; good, but missed more minutes in 2025 than I remembered) and, as a potential improvement over Bukari, Jayden Nelson (from Vancouver; always liked the cut of his jib). None of the above openly guarantees improvement, but the moments from 2025 should give Austin fans some hope of a brighter future. Ideally, one with more goals…
Historical Success (/Hysterical Failure)
Total Joy Points: 1
How They Earned Them (& How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 2022
MLS Playoffs Quarterfinals: 2025
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 2025
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