Not Pretty but Effective: Austin FC Secure Solid Point in Minnesota

Verde earned an impressive 1-1 draw away to Minnesota United on Saturday night.

Austin FC had played 14 MLS matches when it kicked off Saturday night away to Minnesota United. Over a third of the 2025 season has been completed. Here’s a question for you: what is the identity of Nico Estevez’s Austin FC?

Discussion of “identity” and its haughtier cousin “philosophy” in soccer is often associated with the most snobbish, impenetrable corners of the sport’s online fanbase, so forgive me if you instinctively recoiled upon reading that question.

Let’s not overcomplicate matters, though. We don’t need to get into pressing structures and rest defenses. Keep it simple: does Austin FC want to have the ball? Or does it want to avoid it at all costs? Is it more Pep Guardiola or Diego Simeone? Does the team even have a preferred shape?

You probably weren’t necessarily thinking of anything involving a back-five formation, which the Verde and Black deployed en route to an impressive but scruffy 1-1 draw on Saturday. It was only the second time all season that Austin FC began a match with five defenders across its backline. The other time was another away trip to a similarly stout opponent, FC Cincinnati, who - like Minnesota - also prefers playing with a back five.

So, in two of Austin FC’s trickiest road fixtures thus far in 2025, Estevez elected to have his team lineup to match the opposition's shape. That's not inherently a bad thing. In Cincinnati, Verde was competitive in a 2-1 defeat where the expected goals (xG) margin between the teams was so small even Lionel Messi couldn’t thread a pass through it.

Saturday’s contest was similarly tight, though Minnesota was still better in most key metrics (apart from the most key metric of them all, the final score). The Loons accrued more xG - 1.44 to Austin’s .82 (all stats per FotMob.com or FBRef.com unless otherwise noted). Minnesota also racked up more shots, 15 to Verde’s eight, and had more opposition penalty box touches, 29 to Austin’s 16.

Also noteworthy from Saturday while we’re on the subject of identity: possession. For only the second time in an MLS match this season, Minnesota had more of it against Austin FC, 53% to Verde’s 47%. When these two teams met in Austin in May, Verde played a possession-based 4-3-3 formation and had 66% of the ball in a 3-0 defeat.

Can we deduce that Estevez wants his team to dominate the ball at home while preferring a defense-first approach on the road? Not really - the only time Austin FC scored more than one goal in an MLS match this season, it had just 24% possession while playing in a deep, compact 4-4-2 shape in a 2-1 home win against San Diego FC.

Austin FC also went away to the 8th-most possession-dominant team in the league, the Houston Dynamo, last month and had an equal share of the ball in a 2-0 defeat. In Wednesday’s US Open Cup match against the same Dynamo at Q2 Stadium, Austin FC won 3-1 but had just 33% possession. The only constant is there is no constant.

In Minnesota, Austin FC’s shape-shifting was both beneficial and detrimental. When a team changes formation, a concern is often ensuring everyone is where they’re supposed to be in key defensive moments. Against Cincinnati, the playmaking savant Evander was left wide open on both goals Verde allowed. On Saturday, the 5’9 Jon Gallagher was all that meekly stood in the way of the 6’2 Michael Boxall heading in the match’s first goal on a 16th-minute set piece.

Just seconds before Boxall breezed past Gallagher, the more physically imposing Brendan Hines-Ike and Brandon Vazquez were near the New Zealand international center-back.

Minnesota has been exceptional at set-pieces in 2025. Per WhoScored.com, only the Philadelphia Union has scored more set-piece goals than the nine the Loons have netted this campaign. A key to set-piece success is achieving mismatches like the one Minnesota engineered on Boxall’s goal. Still, this newsletter writer wonders if Austin FC’s players remain unsure of their marking assignments in a formation they don’t regularly play in.

While it’s debatable whether Austin FC’s back five played a role in the goal the team conceded, there isn’t an argument that it helped contribute to left wingback Zan Kolmanic’s 27th-minute equalizer. Deep in Austin FC territory, right wingback Gallagher launched a counterattack by firing the ball upfield to Osman Bukari. The Ghanian drove forward before sliding a cross to Myrto Uzuni, who laid the ball off for the onrushing Kolmanic to bash into the net.

Counterattacking opportunities don’t come around often against the possession-averse Loons. It was the first goal Minnesota allowed on the counter all season, per WhoScored.com. The sequence that led to the goal started with one Austin FC wingback on the ball, and it finished with the other wingback knocking a shot by Minnesota goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair. A back-five can help a team generate attacking width, and Austin FC's goal on Saturday is proof.

Other than the goal, however, Verde’s attack was flat. Neither wingback completed a cross in the match (Gallagher was 0/4 on crosses, and Kolmanic was 0/7). And in possession, there was often a notable disconnect between the five players Austin FC kept behind the ball (the two central midfielders and the three center-backs) and the five players ahead of it (the three forwards plus the two wingbacks). This most impacted Vazquez, who had just 16 touches when subbed off in the 71st minute. His touch map of sadness shows Austin FC’s leading goalscorer failed to get on the ball in areas where he could be impactful.

Image via SofaScore.com

Austin FC will want whatever shape it takes next to get the best out of its best players. Much like it's challenging to determine what formation and tactics Verde will roll out next, it’s taxing to discern how good the 2025 edition of Austin FC is. Once near the top of the Western Conference standings, Austin FC is now ninth.