50 Games of Futility: You’re Losing Us Anthony

I woke up this past Sunday morning and did my usual in-season routine:

• Brew a cup of coffee
• Hit the gym and lament the previous night’s Austin FC performance by mumbling to myself.
• Find lunch and shower
• Turn on the Suffering From Joy podcast recapping the game, just so I can get pissed off again, while trying to figure out where to spend my Sunday afternoon drowning my soccer sorrows.

During this week’s pod in which The False 9’s own Charles Peacock was a panelist, the group spoke briefly about Josh Wolff’s job status and mentioned that Austin FC had only procured 56 points in its last 50 MLS regular season matches. That number was shocking, but it also got me thinking about two questions:

1. Where does Austin FC rank in the league over the last 50 matches?
2. What teams have fired/change coaches within their last 50 matches?

So let’s go back 50 Austin FC league matches to July 16, 2022 and see what has happened since kickoff of that evening’s game vs FC Dallas.

Friends, the following chart should be considered NSFW due to its obscene nature.

Yes, you are reading this correctly. Austin FC is the 4th worst team in the league over the last 50 regular season matches. Want to get really pissed off? St Louis CITY has more points (60) than Austin FC (56) despite playing 14 fewer games!!! (Note: STL have only been in existence for 36 MLS matches)

Every team below Austin has had at least one coaching change. 10 teams above Austin during this period have changed managers as well. The lone outlier is the New York Red Bulls, where Gerhard Struber took a promotion to Salzburg. However, the Red Bulls did fire their interim coach at the end of 2023.

I have been loudly #wolffout for quite a while now. This just seals it. A manager’s job is to put his team in position to win games. If they aren’t winning, you get someone new and try again. There appear to be plenty of teams committed to that idea in MLS and, unfortunately, our beloved Verde & Black are not one of them.

At this point the question has to be asked:

What will it take for Anthony Precourt & Rodolfo Borrell to come to their senses and move on from this coaching disaster? If a season and a half of piss-poor results isn’t justification for a coaching change, what is?

Austin FC fans pay far too much money for tickets and invest far too much emotion into this club week in and week out, only to be rewarded with a bottom four team in MLS. We demand better. We deserve better.

Lose Josh or lose us. It’s your call Anthony.