One-Third of the Way Home: A 2025 Austin FC Review (So Far)

Hello intrepid readers. As I mentioned at the beginning of the year, I have taken a step back from weekly duties at The False Nine but will continue to pop in on occasion to talk about important matters.

Believe it or not, we are just over one-third of the way through the MLS season.  And let me tell you, I have thoughts.  Where should we begin with this team?  The lack of offensive production?  The seeming void of any identifiable style of play?  Nico Estevez’s dumbfounding press conferences? There’s a lot to cover, so let’s take this little by little while we try to understand the 2025 Verde squad.

The Standings

Austin FC enters match #13 mid-table in the Western Conference at 16 points, tied with three other teams on that same total.  If the playoffs started today, Austin would host Colorado in the 8 vs 9 play-in game.  Not awful, but not exactly what anyone was expecting either.  The current three game skid in MLS play has dropped Austin from 2^nd to 8^th in less than a month.

The Verde & Black also find themselves proceeding to the Round of 16 in the U.S. Open Cup, with a home match looming against rival Houston coming next Wednesday night.  It will be, by far, the biggest stakes match the two clubs have ever played against each other.

Goals? Never Heard of ‘Em

For anyone paying attention, the unequivocal lead story this season has been Austin’s lack of offensive production despite spending $30M in transfer fees on the front line since last summer.  The team has scored just 8 goals in 12 MLS matches, which is better than just one team in the league: lowly one win Montreal.  To hear Head Coach Nico Estevez explain the scarcity of goals, Austin haven’t finished chances and have been a bit unlucky.  And to a degree, he’s not wrong.  Austin FC has scored 9 fewer goals this season than their xG created (17.01 xG).

That total xG created for the season would still place Austin 22^nd in MLS, meaning we aren’t creating as many chances as the head man would have us believe.  Furthermore, let’s assume for a minute that Austin’s actual goals matched their xG at 17.  That would still only be good enough for a T-16 spot in the league.

Basically, your eyes aren’t deceiving you.  This is a bad offensive club so far.  And if you look at Nico Estevez’s history at FC Dallas, these results are somewhat normal.  His Toro teams finished with 48 (13^th in MLS) and 41 goals (21^st in MLS) in his two full seasons as coach.  It should also be noted that FC Dallas’ offense exploded shortly after his dismissal last June, nearly doubling their goals per game output.

All of this begs the question: is it the players or is it the coach/system?  My strong hunch is it’s the latter, because quite frankly, there is too much evidence to suggest otherwise.  Players need to score, and a few more goals would probably have some more points in the standings for Austin FC, but Nico Estevez is not and has never proven to be an offensive minded head coach.  Which is OK as long as you can play…..

Defense (Where Art Thou?)

Verde were able to rack up points early in the schedule largely thanks to a stingy defense.  Six of Austin’s first nine games featured 1-0 scorelines, while another against Portland ended scoreless.  Austin went 4-2 in those one goal matches and allowed a meager 8 goals in that time.

Match	Score	Result
vs Sporting KC	1-0	W
at Portland Timbers	0-1	L
vs Colorado Rapids	0-1	L
at LAFC	1-0	W
vs San Diego FC	2-1	W
at St Louis CITY	1-0	W
vs Portland Timbers	0-0	D
at Vancouver Whitecaps	5-1	L
vs LA Galaxy	1-0	W

It should be noted that 5 of the 8 goals came in one very bad, completely forgettable match in Vancouver.  But if you remove that Vancouver game, Austin allowed just 3 goals in 8 other matches.  Defensive play like that carried the team and was the main catalyst in overcoming an impotent attack.

Unfortunately that defense has disappeared.  Austin has allowed 7 goals in their last 3 MLS games, nearly matching the total given up through the first nine contests.   Defense first soccer is a Nico Estevez calling card.  His two full season FC Dallas teams surrendered just 37 total goals in each campaign, easily marking themselves as one of the league’s best in that category.  However, those teams also showed a remarkable inability to gain points on nights when the defense allowed more than a single goal.

Nico Estevez’s team, over the course of two full seasons in 2022 and 2023, earned just four total points when allowing two goals or more.  For a bit of perspective, Austin earned 13 points last season when allowing two or more goals.

So what does that data tell me?  If a team can score two goals against a Nico Estevez coached side, his club is almost certainly leaving without a result.  That, folks, is remarkably bad.  And it bears out with what we have seen on the field so far this year.  Austin has scored just two goals from a losing position all year in league play:

• Dani Pereria’s last minute strike in a 5-1 loss at Vancouver
• Brandon Vasquez’s PK at Cincinnati to tie it 1-1, before eventually losing 2-1

Yes, Austin came back from two goals down to win against El Paso in U.S. Open Cup play.  Still, it took putting on the most attacking lineup available and seven minutes of magic to beat a mid-table USL club.  That’s not something to hang your hat on as a coach or fan.  If Austin had found itself down by two goals to an MLS side, Nico’s history shows that Verde would very likely be out of the Open Cup.

Is the Hot Seat Warming Up?

Full disclosure: I was never a fan of the Nico Estevez hire.  He was fired from FC Dallas largely for fielding a stagnant attack despite having Jesus Ferreira and Petar Musa at his disposal.  And now, with $30M of attacking talent, Estevez is doing the same thing here in Austin.  While he has undoubtedly endeared himself to the fanbase with an affable personality, being nice only gets you so far.

I firmly believe the next 8 days are wildly important for Nico Estevez’s tenure here in Austin.  Verde will play three straight home games, starting with a poor Atlanta side also struggling despite spending big in the off-season.  Supporter Shield leading Vancouver visits on Saturday, and while that’s a game I would normally write off, the intense early season heat may play a factor for the visitors from the north.  Finally, Houston comes calling next Wednesday for a U.S. Open Cup round of 16 match.

If Austin can beat Atlanta & Houston, then the wheels stay in motion and we can talk about trusting the process.  Steal a point or three from Vancouver and things really change.

But if the Verde & Black only get one point or less from the two MLS games and lose in the Open Cup match to Houston, then serious conversations need to be had about Nico Estevez’s job security.

What About Rodo?

We can’t finish this without looking at the job Rodolfo Borrell has done so far.  Yes, he has landed some big fish over the last couple of transfer windows and may do so again this summer.  There are two roster slots and a good amount of TAM to work with.  But it’s also hard to overlook his insistence that “good players can always play together” when many pundits had the same question about this roster construction: who will be the creative force in the attack?  That criticism has proven to be accurate. Quite simply, the puzzle pieces Rodo picked aren’t fitting together.  Couple that with the seemingly rushed hire of Nico Estevez and the maestro has some explaining to do.

Open Cup or Bust

What to focus on has been a hot topic in Austin FC fan circles.  Should it be MLS play, U.S. Open Cup, or both?  I’m in this camp:

• Win U.S. Open Cup and MLS play doesn’t matter.  The club’s first trophy should wipe away any hard feelings.
• Lose early in U.S. Open Cup and these MLS league results become hard to ignore.

This team would need a monster turnaround to compete for MLS Cup in December.  At the current rate, they’ll be fortunate to make the playoffs.  But the U.S. Open Cup is a wild, unpredictable tournament and Austin has a fantastic chance to make the quarterfinals with a win over Houston next Wednesday.  The team sits just four wins away from silverware.  As long as Austin is in the tournament, it should be the priority.

Buckle up y’all.  The next week or so is going to be massive for this team’s prospects in 2025.