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| Ye Olde Tyme NFTs. |
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 and they haven't made them after 2022, not even as a wild card. 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. Looks like they have some time left on their stretch as an expansion team...
Total Joy Points: -1
How They Earned Them (& How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 2022
Long-Term Tendencies
A team can’t develop long-term anything in just four seasons and Austin’s a bit all over the place in any case. If anything stands out, it’s the very feeble attacks they fielded in 2021 and…
How 2024 Measured Up
The short version: the defense showed up, only to get dragged under the playoff line by a West’s-worst offense. Not even one Austin FC player scored in the double digits (not even Driussi), so pour one out for Benjamin Hines-Ike, Cascante and Stuver. Maybe Austin got a little cheap when shopping for solutions up top – Jader Obrian was always a stretch and 2023’s “big move,” Gyasi Zardes, has mainly got super-sub minutes since his arrival and rarely delivers on them – maybe their labored style of play made them each to shut down: whatever happened, the regression hit across the board. Despite all that, they presented as a credible team through the end of May (was the over-performing chatter this season?) and didn’t miss a wild card spot by much, but the latter has more to do with MLS's playoff format than any good or capable thing Austin did on the field (this fucking league, man). The remodel started in October when they parted ways with their one and only head coach, Josh Wolff...
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| Making a brand new you. |
Austin continued by declining a slew of options – so long, Finlay, Ring and even the just-acquired and gently-used Matt Hedges – and generally cleaning house, i.e., bye-bye Driussi. (As for Zardes, when a team buys out your contract…oof.) So, yeah, they’re wiping that slate pretty damn clean. On the coaching side, they picked Nico Estevez out of FC Dallas’ 2024 trash – a curious move, but the official press release shows his good side (even if Estevez looks just as confused as everyone else in the photo they chose) – while making some maybe, possibly big moves to get the attacking going. That process started with bringing Brandon Vazquez back from his stint in Liga MX and, more recently, making Albanian international, Myrto Uzuni, their club record transfer. I don’t know much about Spain’s La Liga 2 but it looks like Uzuni took the Golden Boot in the 2022-23 season and that’s something, even if I don’t know what. Ilie Sanchez, picked up from LAFC, looks like Ring’s replacement on paper, but Austin also signed a (very) young Argentine defensive midfielder named Nicolas Dubersarsky, so maybe he’s the long-term plan? (They seem to like Daniel Pereira, too.) None of those look like terrible moves, and that’s a pretty big make-over…but is it enough to make Austin competitive next season and, just as importantly, going forward?
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