Is field tilt really a sign of dominace? Exploring an emerging Austin FC paradox
Field tilt is a measure that can tell you something about which team is dominating a soccer match. In Austin's case, like so many offensive metrics in 2025, it's potentially misleading.
If you want a statistic to help you get a sense of which team's dominating a match that goes beyond xG, field tilt is theoretically one that could do it.
Field tilt is the percentage of total final third passes in a match your team has, and clearly, it's an indicator of your team's ability to consistently put the ball into dangerous places. For example, let's say Team A has 30 final third passes in a match and Team B has 20, making 50 total. Team A would have 60% field tilt in that match, and that metric, combined with xG and possession, could give you a clearer picture of who had most of the ball – and, by the eye test at least, dominated.
However, as you likely know from having watched Austin FC this season (or, to gauge the inverse of what I'm about to say, past seasons), just because you have a lot of the ball or even put the ball into dangerous areas, that doesn't mean you're scoring consequential goals or even scoring at all.
Austin's third match of the season was March 8, hosting Colorado. The teams achieved even field tilt, each getting 50% on the night, and per American Soccer Analysis numbers (as conveyed by the excellent Sebastián Bush), had 1.09 xG to the Rapids' 0.81. Of course, Colorado did one thing Austin didn't do in that match: Scored a goal, courtesy of Rafael Navarro in the 18th minute to secure the 1-0 win.
That match is noteworthy, field tilt-wise, in that it's the last match Verde's gotten 50% or higher this season. After dominating field tilt with 74% in their opener against SKC, and getting 53% in the 1-0 loss at Portland (conceding just the late free kick goal), Austin FC's registered the following field tilt values (with xG and final scores included for reference):
ATXFC at LAFC: 21% (1-0 win, 1.24 xG)
ATXFC vs. San Diego FC: 10% (2-1 win, 2.15 xG)
ATXFC at St. Louis City SC: 30% (1-0 win, 0.77 xG)
ATXFC vs. Portland Timbers: 39% (0-0 draw, 0.74 xG)
ATXFC at Vancouver Whitecaps FC: 39% (5-1 loss, 0.89 xG)
ATXFC vs. LA Galaxy: 43% (1-0 win, 3.14 xG)
Here's what that final third passing looked like in the match against the Galaxy.
Interestingly, not a lot up the middle for either team. In a new wrinkle added to Bush's visualizations, we get an additional element in the next chart – who was responsible for passes into the final third.
That's Jon Gallagher, Owen Wolff, and Besard Šabović combining for more than half of those passes moving play into the danger zone. Guilherme Biro and Myrto Uzuni also contributed. (On the Galaxy side, it's Edwin Cerrillo, Emiro Garces, and Isaiah Parente combining for half, and Diego Fagundez, theoretically quarterbacking the team, is way down the list.)
As you might expect, in the three-match win streak making up the middle third of the season to date, in which field tilt averaged just over 20% but they scored the four goals xG projected they would, Verde didn't have a lot of possession. They mustered 29% against LAFC, 24% against SDFC, and 36% against City. Since then, they've gotten much closer to 50% possession, actually getting there in the most recent win against the Galaxy.
(Overall, per FBref, Austin's 28th in the league in possession with just 43.9%, and with Houston coming in at 8th with 52.8%, I'd expect Saturday's contest at Shell Energy Stadium to be one where Verde might cede possession and end up on the short end of the field tilt equation.)
But, as Moontower Soccer's Landon Cotham delightfully mathed on Tuesday's podcast, Austin's on pace to get 60 points on just 26 goals – a points per goal ratio that would set a record for what would be a very obscure but telling stat.
Indeed, is Austin FC sneakily efficient? Or are they just the offensively frustrated and defensively sound (with one glaring exception north of the border) team our eyes tell us they are?
More numbers!
As you might have surmised from the field tilt numbers, Verde's toward the bottom of the league in both passes into the final third and passes into the penalty area. Specifically, they're 26th in final third passes with 237 (Columbus leads the league with 400) and 24th in passes into the penalty area with 61 (the Whitecaps have 107).
However, they're seventh in crosses into the penalty area with 22, which may not surprise you given that a number of these are burned in your mind for good and for bad. They're also 13th in key passes with 85 – those are passes leading to a shot.
You already know they're not racking up assists: Owen Wolff has three of the five the team's gathered so far, with all of his in dead-ball situations, and of their 14 goal-creating actions per FBref (the two offensive actions leading to a goal, which can include fouls and take-ons), only seven come from live passes. Only Osman Bukari and Diego Rubio can claim an assist in the run of play for Verde so far this season. (The deflection on Žan Kolmanič's pass to Brandon Vázquez by Emiro Garces negated the assist he really should have earned.)
Verde should have more assists as well as more goals. In fact, expected assists are 8.6 and expected assisted goals are 8.1, so the assists minus expected goals assisted value is -3.1, 28th in the league. They're also 28th in the league in goals minus expected goals with -5. Montréal is dead last in both of those categories with an A-xAG of -4.2 and a G-xG of -5.8, but that team's also 0-6-3 and currently neck-and-neck with the Galaxy for the Wooden Spoon race.
How might new acquisition Robert Taylor improve this? While his number wasn't called a lot so far this season, only getting two starts, four appearances, and 198 minutes to date (hence his availability to Austin), he's got an xG + xAG per 90 minutes rating of 0.74, with 0.57 of that being xG, with one goal so far. In 2024, that number was 0.35, split evenly between xG and xAG, in 1644 minutes, working out to five actual goals and three actual assists, or a goal contribution about every 200 minutes.
In 2024, though it was a different Austin, a 0.35 xG+xAG per 90 would have placed him near the top of the list in that category – third among players with starting minutes if you consider a late-arriving Bukari to have starting minutes, logging just over 600. I've highlighted Gyasi Zardes in this chart to show where Taylor would land, which is right above him.
Remember, this is a team that ended up with 39 goals and 29 assists in an overall concerning Verde performance; the current 2025 squad, though in a much better place in the standings, is on track for 26 goals and 19 assists.
I predict we'll see more of Taylor in the coming weeks as he gets integrated into the squad, which I assume will be a Nico Estévez priority. It might not immediately improve field tilt – after all, Miami only has 11 more final third passes than Austin right now (though it's played one less match). But his insertion into the action could bring elements of what Verde need to get more goals and put more matches more comfortably away than the 1-0 nailbiters that we're getting all too accustomed to viewing.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. You can comment here if you’re a subscriber, or reach out via Bluesky.
Five clean sheets. Five wins, four by a 1-0 margin. That's good for second in the West ... but what does it mean for a Verde squad still thinking it can do better?
If you want a statistic to help you get a sense of which team's dominating a match that goes beyond xG, field tilt is theoretically one that could do it.
Field tilt is the percentage of total final third passes in a match your team has, and clearly, it's an indicator of your team's ability to consistently put the ball into dangerous places. For example, let's say Team A has 30 final third passes in a match and Team B has 20, making 50 total. Team A would have 60% field tilt in that match, and that metric, combined with xG and possession, could give you a clearer picture of who had most of the ball – and, by the eye test at least, dominated.
However, as you likely know from having watched Austin FC this season (or, to gauge the inverse of what I'm about to say, past seasons), just because you have a lot of the ball or even put the ball into dangerous areas, that doesn't mean you're scoring consequential goals or even scoring at all.
Austin's third match of the season was March 8, hosting Colorado. The teams achieved even field tilt, each getting 50% on the night, and per American Soccer Analysis numbers (as conveyed by the excellent Sebastián Bush), had 1.09 xG to the Rapids' 0.81. Of course, Colorado did one thing Austin didn't do in that match: Scored a goal, courtesy of Rafael Navarro in the 18th minute to secure the 1-0 win.
That match is noteworthy, field tilt-wise, in that it's the last match Verde's gotten 50% or higher this season. After dominating field tilt with 74% in their opener against SKC, and getting 53% in the 1-0 loss at Portland (conceding just the late free kick goal), Austin FC's registered the following field tilt values (with xG and final scores included for reference):
Here's what that final third passing looked like in the match against the Galaxy.
Interestingly, not a lot up the middle for either team. In a new wrinkle added to Bush's visualizations, we get an additional element in the next chart – who was responsible for passes into the final third.
That's Jon Gallagher, Owen Wolff, and Besard Šabović combining for more than half of those passes moving play into the danger zone. Guilherme Biro and Myrto Uzuni also contributed. (On the Galaxy side, it's Edwin Cerrillo, Emiro Garces, and Isaiah Parente combining for half, and Diego Fagundez, theoretically quarterbacking the team, is way down the list.)
As you might expect, in the three-match win streak making up the middle third of the season to date, in which field tilt averaged just over 20% but they scored the four goals xG projected they would, Verde didn't have a lot of possession. They mustered 29% against LAFC, 24% against SDFC, and 36% against City. Since then, they've gotten much closer to 50% possession, actually getting there in the most recent win against the Galaxy.
(Overall, per FBref, Austin's 28th in the league in possession with just 43.9%, and with Houston coming in at 8th with 52.8%, I'd expect Saturday's contest at Shell Energy Stadium to be one where Verde might cede possession and end up on the short end of the field tilt equation.)
But, as Moontower Soccer's Landon Cotham delightfully mathed on Tuesday's podcast, Austin's on pace to get 60 points on just 26 goals – a points per goal ratio that would set a record for what would be a very obscure but telling stat.
Indeed, is Austin FC sneakily efficient? Or are they just the offensively frustrated and defensively sound (with one glaring exception north of the border) team our eyes tell us they are?
More numbers!
As you might have surmised from the field tilt numbers, Verde's toward the bottom of the league in both passes into the final third and passes into the penalty area. Specifically, they're 26th in final third passes with 237 (Columbus leads the league with 400) and 24th in passes into the penalty area with 61 (the Whitecaps have 107).
However, they're seventh in crosses into the penalty area with 22, which may not surprise you given that a number of these are burned in your mind for good and for bad. They're also 13th in key passes with 85 – those are passes leading to a shot.
You already know they're not racking up assists: Owen Wolff has three of the five the team's gathered so far, with all of his in dead-ball situations, and of their 14 goal-creating actions per FBref (the two offensive actions leading to a goal, which can include fouls and take-ons), only seven come from live passes. Only Osman Bukari and Diego Rubio can claim an assist in the run of play for Verde so far this season. (The deflection on Žan Kolmanič's pass to Brandon Vázquez by Emiro Garces negated the assist he really should have earned.)
Verde should have more assists as well as more goals. In fact, expected assists are 8.6 and expected assisted goals are 8.1, so the assists minus expected goals assisted value is -3.1, 28th in the league. They're also 28th in the league in goals minus expected goals with -5. Montréal is dead last in both of those categories with an A-xAG of -4.2 and a G-xG of -5.8, but that team's also 0-6-3 and currently neck-and-neck with the Galaxy for the Wooden Spoon race.
How might new acquisition Robert Taylor improve this? While his number wasn't called a lot so far this season, only getting two starts, four appearances, and 198 minutes to date (hence his availability to Austin), he's got an xG + xAG per 90 minutes rating of 0.74, with 0.57 of that being xG, with one goal so far. In 2024, that number was 0.35, split evenly between xG and xAG, in 1644 minutes, working out to five actual goals and three actual assists, or a goal contribution about every 200 minutes.
In 2024, though it was a different Austin, a 0.35 xG+xAG per 90 would have placed him near the top of the list in that category – third among players with starting minutes if you consider a late-arriving Bukari to have starting minutes, logging just over 600. I've highlighted Gyasi Zardes in this chart to show where Taylor would land, which is right above him.
Remember, this is a team that ended up with 39 goals and 29 assists in an overall concerning Verde performance; the current 2025 squad, though in a much better place in the standings, is on track for 26 goals and 19 assists.
I predict we'll see more of Taylor in the coming weeks as he gets integrated into the squad, which I assume will be a Nico Estévez priority. It might not immediately improve field tilt – after all, Miami only has 11 more final third passes than Austin right now (though it's played one less match). But his insertion into the action could bring elements of what Verde need to get more goals and put more matches more comfortably away than the 1-0 nailbiters that we're getting all too accustomed to viewing.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. You can comment here if you’re a subscriber, or reach out via Bluesky.
Read Next
Foreign Exchange: Three Dynamo questions with Bayou City Soccer's Dustyn Richardson
You might be wondering about the Dynamo and what they're all about this season. Let's remedy that with a friend from H-Town.
'We're just missing a little bit of luck': Sizing up a win leaving Austin FC second in the West
Five clean sheets. Five wins, four by a 1-0 margin. That's good for second in the West ... but what does it mean for a Verde squad still thinking it can do better?
At the Whistle: Austin FC 1, LA Galaxy 0
Verde got back to winning ways on Saturday with what's becoming their signature 2025 scoreline.