Not so hot from the spot: Austin FC's 2025 penalty kick woes, explored

When we discuss the 2025 Austin FC season, one of the big storylines is penalty kicks, and when it comes to penalty kicks, one of the most important numbers to bring up is two.

Two is, strangely, the number of penalty kicks Austin FC was awarded in 2025, in 34 regular-season games. That's one every half-season, the lowest of any team in MLS.

By comparison, Nashville SC, Vancouver Whitecaps FC, and Colorado Rapids all got 11 PKs, or about one every three matches, while LAFC got nine, and New York Red Bulls got eight to round out the top five. The average awarded in 2025 was just over five.

Given the paucity of goals for Verde this year, more PK chances might have meant more goals. As it stood, with about 0.8 xG per PK opportunity per FBref's numbers, only 3.8% of Verde's xG this season came from the spot — 1.6 out of 41.8. That was 29th in the league; only Orlando City was lower, getting 3.6% of its xG from PKs, though they did tally 60.4 xG and 63 goals on the season, with just three goals coming from the spot.

You might not remember PKs taken during the season, as they happened early and involved a player who tore an ACL minutes after making his last PK of the season. Here's the sum total of PKs for Verde during the regular season:

• April 19, vs. LA Galaxy, Brandon Vázquez (67' PK saved by John McCarthy); and
• May 1o, at FC Cincinnati, Brandon Vázquez (48' PK made vs. Roman Celentano).

He didn't even celebrate the one he made, as it came against his former team.

But wait, there's more

Despite only getting two PKs during the regular season, Verde got eight in total in 2025, with two coming in the playoffs and four coming in Open Cup competition. Weirdly, the team had one every 17 MLS regular-season matches but six in seven tournament matches.

Here's how those went.

U.S. Open Cup

• May 21, vs. Houston Dynamo FC, Osman Bukari (56' PK made vs. Jimmy Maurer);
• July 8, at San Jose Earthquakes, Brandon Vázquez (65' PK made vs. Daniel);
• July 8, at San Jose Earthquakes, Myrto Uzuni (115' PK made vs. Daniel); and
• Oct. 1, vs. Nashville SC, Myrto Uzuni (21' PK saved by Brian Schwake).

You remember that last one, certainly. Weirdly, that was Austin's first first-half PK in 2025. There would be two more.

MLS Playoffs

• Nov. 2, vs. LAFC, Myrto Uzuni (39' PK saved by Hugo Lloris); and
• Nov. 2, vs. LAFC, Dani Pereira (45'+6' PK vs. Hugo Lloris).

So, if you're keeping count, only four Verde players took PKs in 2025. Two were a perfect, uh, one-for-one, whereas one designated player converted his meager chances at a 67% rate, and another designated player converted his slightly less meager chances at a 33% rate.

Altogether, Verde converted PKs at a 62.5% rate, below the expected rate for converting PKs, but if you take Uzuni out of the equation, Verde converts at the 80% rate you'd expect from a team's PK takers.

Who needs goals anyway?

Not getting PKs wasn't the sole reason that Austin FC didn't score goals in 2025, but it sure didn't help. Stripping away two own goals and the PK goal in a losing effort against FC Cincinnati, Verde mustered exactly a goal a game in 2025, placing it on an equal tier with Portland Timbers FC (who also made the playoffs, though through the more challenging play-in route, and besting five teams, one of which (Real Salt Lake) made the play-in round, and four of which were legitimate Wooden Spoon contenders.

Had Verde managed three more goals, given the league average for PKs awarded, they could have been ... well, among a number of teams who failed to make the playoffs despite scoring more goals, including Houston, New England, Sporting KC, and St. Louis SC.

Of the East teams who made the playoffs, all had positive goal differentials, with Columbus being the lowest at +4.

Of the West teams making the playoffs, four had negative goal differentials:

• RSL, -11;
• Austin FC, -8;
• Portland; -7;
• Dallas, -3;

San Jose, which just missed the playoffs, also had a -3 goal differential, helped by its 2-1 win over Austin on Decision Day; all the other teams missing the playoffs had at least a -12 — including Colorado, helped by being able to convert seven of 11 PKs throughout the season.

In 2024, Verde got six PK attempts during the season, converting four; in 2023, they went two for two; in 2022, they went four for four (in a season when the Galaxy went nine for 14!); and in their debut season, they went one for two.

Circling back to the 2025 league average, Verde's had less regular-season PKs in four of their five seasons. So at least a lack of PK chances is more the norm, meaning that they're not reliant on it.

And given questions around who will shoot from the spot in 2026 — at least, until Vázquez comes back and assumes that mantle, as head coach Nico Estévez let us know recently he's the first choice — it may be just as well that Austin FC doesn't have PK chances to fret over.

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