The holiday season is often about celebrating love. With Don Garber showing us some rare love by releasing a schedule before Christmas, our hearts were temporarily warmed. Then, we quickly realized that we didn’t get the gift of matches at a random baseball stadium in New York, a weekend by the lake against a clueless team in an empty stadium in Chicago, or a chance to see Messi in Austin. At least, we did get a trip north of the border to Toronto, avoided Ohio once again, and don’t have to go to Florida in the summer time.
In a fun season preview, I decided to rank our opponents not in terms of how they good they are (it’s MLS, we have no clue), but rather how much we hate them, as that’s way more fun:
Tier 5 (We are cool with them):
Colorado Rapids (Away 6/15; Home 10/19-Decision Day once again)
While we somehow haven’t beaten Colorado once at home yet, we have had two epic away victories there, including our first ever win back in 2021. Their front office has been super accommodating in allowing a road Murga show outside of Texas, so it’s super nice of them to bring atmosphere to their otherwise dull, suburban soccer stadium. C38, the main SG in Colorado, has folks who are incredibly kind and frankly deserve better than what their front office has offered them.
Charlotte FC (Home 7/20)
The good folks in Charlotte bought us a cake when we visited in 2022 for modeling how to set up a supporters group, and we beat them on a Dani banger. That instantly makes them one of our favorite opponents ever. Let’s hope Dani is still around by mid July, and the return leg results in a similar fashion to the trip to the Carolinas.
Tier 4 (Do we know each other?):
Philadelphia Union (Home 3/16) and NYCFC (Home 7/6)
It’s crazy that it’s Year Four, and it’s the first time we are playing either of these sides. I am glad they were finally scheduled though. While we have played Chicago in the Open Cup and pre-season friendlies, it is insane that it is taking at least 5 years to play them in the league.
Toronto FC (Away 9/14)
Yes, we played and beat Toronto last year at home on a late Zardes winner (God, I wish I said that more often about last season). But that match didn’t really start to build any rivalry, so I am keeping TFC in this tier. I just hope that BMO Field runs the same Mill Street Organic Lager specials for TFC matches that they do for Argos games, since that would be the best deal on beer in the league (2 very drinkable beers for 12 CAD or $9.05 US).
Tier 3 (There’s some intensity but pretty average):
Minnesota United (Home 2/24; Away 6/22)
If it were on fans alone, Minnesota would be in Tier 5. Their folks are simply outstanding, home and away. However, Michael Boxall still plays for Minnesota, and always seems to get involved in random fights with our guys. There is real tension on the pitch, especially after we somehow grabbed 6 points against Minnesota. Even if we are much better this year, I doubt we are snatching 6 points from Minnesota again.
Vancouver Whitecaps (Away 5/4; Home 8/31)
Another match where we are in Tier 5 with their fun supporters. However, as former Whitecap Julian Gressel has noted there has been a lot of tension on the pitch between the teams. There is a perception that we complain for every last call and it has pissed off the Whitecaps. We still have not gotten a point in Vancouver in 3 trips there and the results at home have been perfectly mixed at 1-1-1.
Sporting Kansas City (Home 5/18; Away 6/29)
Now we have had some issues with a few random jerks here and there in Kansas City, but overall these matches have been fun and fairly intense. We have yet to drop points at home against them and have a mixed bag of results in Eastern Kansas. They are one of the few teams in the league that have mostly succeeded in retaliating against our traveling fans for our expensive home tickets, so that’s a tad annoying. They do have a great pregame tailgate scene, so they get some credit for that.
Portland Timbers (Home 5/29; Away 10/2)
We had our historic first win at McKalla against the Timbers and followed it up with another home win later that season. However, we have lost the last two seasons at home against the Timbers and finally got our first point in Portland last season on Will Bruin’s late equalizer. At first, the Timbers fans viewed us as plastic, but some mutual respect has been built up in the past few seasons among our arboreal rivals.
Real Salt Lake (Away 6/1; Home 9/28)
Well, we obviously had an epic playoff game with them in 2022, but there hasn’t been much fan relationship between our teams. The first two years were defined with home wins for both sides, but last year the script flipped with both teams winning away. It should be a fun set games ahead in 2024.
Nashville SC (Away 8/24)
While Nashville looks likely to stay in the East for the indefinite future, the 3 games our teams played in 2021 and 2022 led to some animosity for sure on the pitch. Setting up 2 matches in 14 days in 2022 when Seba and Hany were battling it out for the MVP led to choppy affairs. We expect that MLS will continue to promote this cross conference battle through guitars, bachelorette parties, and more between our similar cities. It is interesting to me that it will be the 3rd game in Nashville where only one has been played in Austin. However, I don’t mind a return trip to a fun city and pretty stadium where we can hopefully get a point or more this time.
Tier 2 (There’s some history starting to build up):
St. Louis CITY (Home 3/9; Away 4/14)
Even though CITY has only been in the league for one season, last year’s matchups were epic for all the wrong reasons. It looked like we had 3 points secured at home even after Julio’s injury, but Kipp Keller’s unfortunate pass to his old teammate Jared Stroud destroyed that. However, this budding rivalry loses a lot of its luster with Kipp now in Cincy and Jared now in DC. I don’t think we will get anywhere close to the 14 goals scored in the two matches last year this year, but we’ll have to watch to find out. It should be noted that CITY has great supporters and fans who actually know the game, which is not the norm in the league.
Orlando City (Away 3/23)
This match may be a tier or two higher than some people would have expected. There are two levels to this rivalry. First, these teams played a wild match in Austin in 2022 that ended with 9 men for Orlando and a two goal comeback for a draw for Austin. For longer Austin fans, plenty of folks remember the Austin Aztex moving to Orlando to become Orlando City. There’s also a surprising amount of online chirping between our fan bases, so I expect a saucy affair in Orlando in March. While many people act like Austin has little to no soccer history, this rivalry shows a strong counter point.
LA Galaxy (Home 4/27; Away 10/5)
While there are a bunch of Angelinos that live in Austin, we frankly didn’t care that much about the Galaxy. We have gotten consistently crushed out there and have mixed results against them at home. However, once we traded Diego Fagundez out to Carson last summer, this rivalry picked up a degree. We should have finished them off at home this year in a super rain delayed match, but we blew away a 3-1 lead late. Apparently, Diego told his new teammates that we didn’t have the conditioning to finish the match late, and he wasn’t wrong. As long as Diego is in Carson, this match will have an additional edge to it.
LAFC (Home 6/19; Away 9/18)
Some people may be surprised to see this match on Tier 2. With the exception of the two regular season wins in 2022, we have been soundly beaten the other six teams we have played them. LAFC is a better team than us and their supporter groups as a whole are doing a better job than us. We are much closer to their level off the pitch, but we still have work to do to get there on the pitch. They don’t think that much about us, and our folks are wasting their time if they are thinking about LAFC.
Tier 1 (Good, ole-fashioned hate):
Seattle Sounders (Away 3/2; Home 7/13)
I realize that most of the teenagers from the Sounders infamous victory in Austin in 2021 are not teenagers anymore. However, that loss, especially after a draw in Seattle two months earlier, set up an intense rivalry in our mind, even though we know Sounders fans could care less. This year’s home match with a lack of goal-line technology (it’s now 2024 and MLS still doesn’t have goal-line technology and Apple is not delivering on the promised number of cameras!!!) raised this hatred to another level. At least we finally bagged 3 points in Seattle last season, so these matches aren’t as one sided, as we can get at least occasionally get a draw with Seattle unlike LAFC.
FC Dallas (Home 3/30; Away 5/11 and 7/17)
We don’t like Frisco. They hate us. During the regular season, they have frequently had our number, and we still have not won a match in North Texas (even though the Copa Tejas clinching draw there in 2022 was an effective win). However, the playoff win against them in 2022 at home was one of the best matches in our short history. With leadership that is continuously developing players up in North Texas, these matches should continue to be intense for years to come.
San Jose Earthquakes (Home 4/6; Away 5/25)
If you had asked me 3 years ago where San Jose would rank on this list, I surely would have expected Tier 3 or possibly even Tier 5. Their fans, while few in numbers, have treated us well and vice versa. However, the 7 matchups between these teams have been shambolic. After San Jose won 2 of the first 3 matchups in 2021, the subsequent 4 matches have been absurd draws. We have had elite shithousery, world class goals (both ways), and these matches seemingly all end in draws after the bullshit question loss in 2021.
Houston Dynamo (Away 4/20; Home 5/15 and 9/21)
Well, Houston is really just the original San Jose, so it would make sense that there would also be some tension there. In terms of fans, the relationships between supporters is simply awful. The violence there has overshadowed the play on the pitch We have won every match against Houston at home but only won 1 of the 4 in Houston.
Let us know in the comments or on social media if you agree or disagree with these rankings!