Good Things Come in Pairs: Austin FC Scores Twice (Again) and Wins Second-Straight Match
Verde defeated New York Red Bulls 2-1 at Q2 Stadium on Saturday night.
The nightmare ended.
Austin FC halted its eight-match MLS winless run with a win over the Colorado Rapids last Saturday. Two goals! A clean sheet! The panic button - pounded relentlessly for nearly two months - was finally rested.
Verde entered its Saturday night contest with New York Red Bulls in eighth place in the Western Conference. Earlier this season, Austin FC - winners of four of its first six matches - had been as high as second. The 2025 season has been a rollercoaster worthy of Six Flags. You, an Oak Tree Times subscriber, might have asked yourself before kickoff Saturday: is this team good or bad?
Don’t go looking at the underlying metrics for a clue. Before the Red Bull match, Austin FC’s expected goals differential (xGD) sat at exactly zero - 23 xG for and 23 xG against (all stats per FBRef.com or FotMob.com unless otherwise noted). Nico Estevez’s team has been sitting squarely on the fence: Verde has created and conceded chances at the exact same rate as its opponents.
A little over halfway into the season, it feels like Austin FC is teetering on the brink. Whether it’s on the brink of a satisfying push into the postseason for the first time since 2022 or on the brink of a calamitous third-straight year without playoff soccer is anyone’s guess.
With that in mind, was it any shock that the first half of Austin FC’s eventual 2-1 victory on Saturday night played out as it did? How about the good: Owen Wolff’s gorgeous chipped assist to Guilherme Biro during the second phase of a corner kick on Austin FC’s sixth-minute opening goal. When Biro pantomimed Spider-Man in front of jubilant Austin FC supporters in celebration, the Verde and Black looked to be picking up right where it left off in the Rockies.
Until the bad: Brandon Vazquez deflecting an Emil Forsberg cross off his head into the back of Brad Stuver's net. The jokes wrote themselves. Vazquez’s debut Austin FC season has been defined by an avalanche of missed chances in front of the opposition’s net. That Vazquez would erase Austin FC’s early advantage by knocking the ball into his own team's goal was tragicomedy at its harshest.
No player represents the fork-in-the-road nature of the first half of Austin FC’s season more than Vazquez. Is the woebegone United States international striker the unlucky victim of one of the more shocking cold finishing streaks in recent MLS history? And if so, is he poised to turn that bad luck on its head and propel his team to the playoffs with emphatic goal after emphatic goal in the season’s second half? Or will Vazquez be the latest Austin FC striker to underwhelm en route to a single-digit end-of-season goal tally?
If Saturday’s second half is any indication, the ice might be thawing on Superman’s cold spell. The culmination of a sumptuous multi-pass sequence, Vazquez’s finish for the winner (which had more than a hint of catharsis) on Osman Bukari’s pinpoint cross was a reassuring sign that Austin FC’s 2025 is finding its groove again.
Vazquez’s overall play still has room for improvement. He scored on his only shot of the match against the Red Bulls, and his holdup and link work were spotty throughout the night: Vazquez lost seven of his 10 duels and completed only 11 of his 21 pass attempts. Austin FC’s number 9 is in the 70th percentile among MLS strikers in 2025 for non-penalty xG per 90 minutes - respectable but below expectation. But compared to the 20th percentile Vazquez resides in for non-penalty goals per 90, his xG looks rosy.
To an extent, Austin FC’s consecutive victories have the feel of a snakebitten team finally having the ball bounce its way. The xG battle on Saturday was close to even - Austin FC with 1.17 xG to New York’s 1.07. Contrast that with the xG in recent home draws against Real Salt Lake (2.09 to 1.74 in favor of Austin FC) and the Vancouver Whitecaps (1.39 to .26 to Verde), and there’s a sense that Estevez’s team isn’t necessarily playing better, but just catching breaks that it wasn’t previously.
Austin FC’s head coach doesn’t quite see it that way: “I think we’re trying to do things differently,” Estevez said in his post-match press conference when asked if his team had done anything differently in its last two matches or if the chances are just now falling. “We’re finding a way where we can draw defenders on the opponent’s side in a better way…we are adapting better to the qualities of Bukari and Brandon…I think that is helping,” he added.
Verde’s pass map from Saturday does show the team generated width down both flanks, stretching a Red Bull team known for its compactness.
Victory on Saturday further consolidated Austin FC’s position above the Western Conference playoff line. Verde now enters a two-week break in 7th place, five points clear of 10th-place FC Dallas, though Austin’s Texas rivals have two matches in hand. While the true level of the 2025 vintage of Austin FC remains unclear, the team is trending in the right direction.
A big congrats to the Verde on a winning match and also to the writer for some great coverage on the match!! Verde fans can only hope that Estevez is correct in saying the team is trying to do things differently. Hopefully the team doesn't lose their momentum with the break.