How Will Austin FC Line Up in 2025, and Do Formations Even Matter?

Let’s explore how Austin FC might look on the field next season.

Pep Guardiola, the turtleneck enthusiast who coaches Manchester City, told journalist Marti Peranau while in charge of Bayern Munich that formations in soccer are “nothing more than telephone numbers.”

Elaborating on Guardiola’s dismissal of the 4-3-3s and 3-5-2s that fans and journalists alike love to debate, Juanma Lillo, a mentor to Guardiola and his assistant at Manchester City, added: “You’ll never see players in those (formation) positions, not even when they first come out onto the pitch.”

For much of Austin FC’s existence, the team has felt like a puzzle that’s missing pieces - there’s always been a striker missing here or a center-back (or two) missing there. The result often felt like former head coach Josh Wolff was trying to assemble a puzzle after a sugar-addled toddler lost pieces by getting a hold of them and tossing them into the air.

Current Austin FC head coach Nico Estevez doesn’t have that problem. Austin FC has spent the winter adding more pieces than even the most optimistic Verde fans could have hoped for. The headline names are forwards Brandon Vazquez and Myrto Uzuni and midfielder Ilie Sanchez. But Austin FC also further fortified their midfield depth with the signings of Besard Sabovic and Nicolas Dubersarsky. Sabovic is 27 and profiles as a box-to-box midfielder. While Dubersarsky - 20 years old and occupying a U22 initiative roster slot - is a holding midfielder and the presumed heir apparent to Sanchez.

With the possible exception of a creative attacking midfielder, the 2025 version of Austin FC isn’t missing any pieces. The question is: how do the pieces fit together? But maybe it doesn’t matter so much how the pieces fit together. A completed puzzle is fixed, static. A well-functioning soccer team is fluid; the pieces are constantly in motion.

Take Uzuni. If Estevez lines up Austin FC in the nominal 4-3-3 formation he preferred during his time at FC Dallas, Uzuni would likely start on the left wing. The thought of Uzuni as a left winger has prompted concern about the Verde and Black’s ability to generate width down that flank. Uzuni has often played as one half a front two while at Spanish club Granada, and there are questions about how well he’ll handle playing a wider position. When Austin FC opens their 2025 season at Q2 Stadium against Sporting Kansas City, Apple TV might flash a graphic that shows this as Austin FC’s shape.

Much to Juanma Lillo’s presumed consternation, broadcasters put up a graphic like this when a team plays with four defenders, three midfielders, and three forwards. But Uzuni doesn’t have to be locked into a position near the left touchline. As mentioned in a previous edition of the Oak Tree Times, which analyzed the acquisition of Uzuni, Austin FC’s left-back of choice last season, Guilherme Biro, likes to get forward. Biro (or one of the two other left-backs on Austin FC’s roster who also like to contribute in attack, Jon Gallagher or Zan Kolmanic) marauding up the left flank would allow Uzuni to tuck inside and operate closer to the opposition's goal where he’s most comfortable and dangerous.

For an idea of how this dynamic works in an Estevez-coached team, let’s look back to a match from May 2023 when Estevez’s FC Dallas visited Austin FC. Dallas’ right-back that night was Ema Twumasi. If you know anything about Twumasi besides the fact that he played for the Austin Bold (RIP), you know he’s not afraid of getting into advanced areas. Here is his touch map from the match.

Image via Sofascore.com

You’ll notice a lot of bright red high up the flank in Austin FC’s half. FC Dallas’ right winger against Austin FC was someone you know quite well: Jader Obrian. Twumasi getting forward allowed Obrian to take up more central positions, including central positions in the penalty area, as illustrated by his touch map from the evening.

Image via Sofascore.com

Uzuni doesn’t have to be what most fans have in their heads as the prototypical winger - someone capable of staying wide and whipping in crosses or cutting from out to in with the ball to beat an opponent with a shifty dribble. Effectively, if Austin FC deploys a front three of Uzuni, Vazquez, and Osman Bukari, the team’s forward-thinking options at left-back mean the Verde and Black’s in-possession shape could resemble something closer to a 3-5-2.

Good soccer teams find ways to open up gaps in the opposition’s defensive structure when they have the ball; stretching that structure vertically and horizontally is key. Players vacating one area of the field for another helps create the space attacks love and defenses loath. Uzuni crashing the box to get on the end of a Biro cross after an opposition full-back has been dragged toward the Brazilian near the touchline would be a hypothetical example of Austin FC moving the opposition around to create space. In this example, the opposition would have been moved because Austin FC’s players didn’t stay confined to the areas of the field their positional designations suggest they should.

It’s also possible that Estevez’s Austin FC chooses to play out of a base 4-4-2 setup (the team scrimmaged using that formation during a recent practice session open to fans). Under Wolff, despite usually being listed as a team playing a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 shape, the Verde and Black spent a decent amount of time in a 4-4-2 formation when defending.

Teams usually take up different shapes with and without the ball, reinforcing the Guardiola/Lillo view that designating a single formation to a team is reductive and ultimately irrelevant. A 4-4-2 defensive block has become a common tactic for teams that we don’t often think of as 4-4-2 teams - it’s not just for the Sean Dyche’s and Sam Allardyce’s of the world anymore. Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal has become an elite defensive unit lining up in a 4-4-2 shape without the ball even though the team doesn’t attack in that formation and most wouldn’t consider Arsenal a “4-4-2 team.” Arsenal fans might cry if you likened anything about their team to a formation associated with someone like Tony Pulis.

Without possession, the 4-4-2 provides coverage across the width of the field with two banks of four defending players and leaves two forwards high to pressure the opposition’s build-up - it’s become popular for a reason: it’s good at denying space. With speedy wingers like Obrian, Bukari, and Gallagher (should Estevez choose to play him further forward), a base 4-4-2 shape for Austin FC that cedes the ball to the opposition and looks to strike on the counter could make sense, especially considering the team’s current lack of a central midfield playmaker.

That’s how Austin FC could look without the ball with that group of players (four defenders, two central midfielders, two wingers, and two strikers). In possession - particularly after just winning the ball deep in its half - Austin FC would probably morph into a close cousin of the 4-4-2: the 4-2-3-1. Vazquez is dominant in the air. Per FBRef.com, he ranked in the 80th percentile among MLS forwards in the 2023 season for aerial duels won. It’s easy to picture Vazquez dropping off the forward line to receive a launched, direct pass while Obrian and Bukari bomb up the flanks, and Uzuni waits in the box to pounce on a scoring chance.

The point of all this isn’t to say that there’s no value in taking a screenshot of a match and labeling the shape of a team in that particular moment a 4-3-3. In that specific instance, that might very well be how the team has positioned itself. But formations are flexible. And thinking of a team as a 4-3-3 team or a 4-4-2 team is unhelpful and often inaccurate. Austin FC has good players, many of whom can wreak havoc in multiple areas of the field - that’s what matters most for the 2025 season.