This feels familiar: What to make of Austin FC being 8-8-6 at the All-Star Break
As we reach this key juncture of the season, we look at the games remaining and the players who might be coming in and out during the summer transfer window
On July 6, 2024, Austin FC moved into playoff position – if you're not bogged down in semantics around the play-in game and consider 9th place the playoffs – with a 2-1 win over NYCFC, improving to 8-6-6 on the season.
Only July 16, 2025, Austin FC also moved into playoff position – if you're not bogged down in semantics around the play-in game and also consider 8th place the playoffs – with a 2-1 win over LA Galaxy, improving to 8-6-6 on the season.
Reminded of this by the Austin FC Ireland account, which does comparisons for all five seasons as a regular service, this got us thinking about this 22-game mark as a pivotal juncture.
For comparison purposes, this is how this season is stacking up against prior years after 22 games played. #AustinFC
You know what happened to close out 2024, and in case you forget, I'm here to quickly remind you that you don't want 2024 to repeat itself.
Verde finished on a 3-6-3 skid which included a 1-0 loss to Seattle and a 3-1 loss to Dallas in the following two games, a 2-2 draw to Charlotte (which included Mikkel Desler's debut), a Leagues Cup break that included two improbable home wins to Liga MX giants Pumas and Monterrey (followed by an away loss at LAFC per the tournament organizers' scheduling whims), a win away at Nashville that featured the best Osman Bukari in Verde goal to date, and then a five-match winless streak that put the team on the brink of playoff elimination — a ridiculous, mathematically-quite-probable brink that put head coach Josh Wolff in limbo.
The playoff hopes, and Wolff's tenure at Austin, ended with an away loss to the LA Galaxy; Wolff was dismissed the following morning, and interim coach Davy Arnaud won the meaningless season finale over the Rapids.
Of course, there are reasons to hope that 2025 won't be like 2024. Let's start with the schedule.
What's next for Austin
A month ago, we discussed the relatively "easy" schedule for Verde down the stretch based on opponents' points per game; since posting that article, the team's only played three matches. They lost to Seattle, drew against New England at home, beat the Galaxy, and its home match against LAFC — one of the trickier tests remaining on the regular-season schedule – was delayed due to catastrophic flooding in Central Texas and got moved to become the penultimate match of the season during an international break in which each team's biggest scoring threat will likely be across the Atlantic.
Here's the remaining schedule (with their current places in the table for regular-season matches):
July 26, at D.C. United (14th in the East)
Aug. 9, vs. Houston Dynamo FC (11th in the West)
Aug. 16, vs. FC Dallas (12th in the West)
Aug. 23, at CF Montréal (15th in the East)
Aug. 30, at San Jose Earthquakes (9th in the West)
Sept. 6, at Sporting Kansas City (13th in the West)
Sept. 13, at FC Dallas (12th in the West)
Sept. 17, at Minnesota United (U.S. Open Cup semifinal)
Sept. 20, vs. Seattle Sounders (4th in the West)
Sept. 27, at Real Salt Lake (10th in the West)
Oct. 1, U.S. Open Cup final (optimism!)
Oct. 4, vs. St. Louis City SC (14th in the West)
Oct. 12, vs. LAFC (5th in the West)
Oct. 18, at San Jose Earthquakes (9th in the West)
There's a bit of a Leagues Cup gap, a bit of Open Cup congestion for at least one match (hopefully two), but it's pretty much a match each Saturday against mostly the bottom tier of the league. To put the ease of the schedule another way, 10 of the remaining 12 regular-season matches are against teams that are 9th or below. Take the two matches against San Jose out of the equation, and exactly 2/3 of the games are against teams who would miss the playoffs if today's table was the final one.
The next six matches are against teams with a combined 0.98 points per game, with a combined 33-69-40 record. Of the six, all but San Jose already have double-digit losses on the season. That's not, of course, a guarantee that Verde will stack wins — consider the recent scoreless draw against a Revs team that's now 6-10-7 (on 1.09 PPG) — but the schedule we regarded as favorable is particularly favorable heading into and through the Labor Day holiday.
Who's coming? Who's going?
The summer transfer window opens on Thursday, July 24, the day after the All-Star Game, and we already know of one incoming player. Nicky Beloko, most recently with FC Luzern in the Swiss Super League, was pledged back in January and will be available when Austin plays at Audi Field on Saturday — and since he's already been training with the team, you might expect him to make a sub appearance.
With the rumor that Dani Pereira is off to Coventry City — a move several years in the making if you believe all the past and present reporting (which includes what Pereira himself told We Are Austin TV) — Beloko becomes a roughly like-for-like swap in central midfield, making the roster a little more flexible for sporting director Rodolfo Borrell to do work — though international spots are still at a premium.
There's also the somewhat baffling rumor that Diego Palacios is coming from Corinthians on a loan, and there's enough smoke around that rumor that you should expect it to be announced soon.
Palacios (still just 26, despite being a pro since 2014) certainly provides Verde an upgrade at left back, but given the need in other positions (attacking midfield, center back, and now striker thanks to the Brandon Vázquez injury), it's a little puzzling as a move unless it's coupled with another outgoing player.
Given that Palacios is a left back, perhaps it's Žan Kolmanič that could be going out, though there have also been rumors about Jáder Obrian heading to Colombia. As Jon Gallagher has played a lot of wing this season and Robert Taylor remains on this roster, perhaps Guilherme Biro will function as the temporary fourth center back solution until the offseason, when I would expect Julio Cascante to either sign a new, more club-friendly contract or move from the club, and center back would become even more of a need position.
(Remember that Verde's been playing with three true first-team center backs since moving Leo Väisänen just four months ago.)
There are a few more incoming player rumors we should keep on the radar, just in case:
Kervin "Tuti" Andrade, a very fun attacking 20-year-old midfielder who would be a U22 Initiative player — according to the latest wave of rumors, his current club Fortaleza may be willing to let him go on loan for a year, with Orlando, Austin, and unnamed Serie B teams in Italy reportedly among the suitors;
Mickaël Nadé, a 26-year-old French defender with Ligue 2 side Saint-Étienne (the same league that served as the pipeline for Desler and Moussa Djitté to get to Austin FC); and
Mateja Đorđević, the latest rumored center back signing – he's a 22-year-old Serbian with Serbian SuperLiga team FK TSC Bačka Topola, best known in soccer circles for its youth academy developing Dušan Tadić (who you might remember playing for Southampton, Ajax, and Fenerbahçe.
At present, Verde has one international spot left, and it's a ninth spot secured in a trade; they'll be back to eight next year unless they're able to make a deal to grab another spot. Obrian leaving would free up another spot, but the other seven belong to Beloko (who just got here), Biro, Bukari, Oleksandr Svatok, and three players who arrived in 2025 — Nicolás Dubersarsky, Besard Šabović, and Myrto Uzuni. It's hard to imagine, of those seven, who would be able to secure a green card or who would be dealt so relatively soon after getting here.
(Biro, having arrived in January 2024, has the longest tenure of those seven, and Obrian arrived via the league's Re-Entry Draft the month before Biro arrived.)
The MVP candidates so far
If you have to look for one MVP on the team, Brad Stuver is the most obvious choice. He's finally an All-Star (and arguably might have been this season even with another coach selecting), he has eight clean sheets to match his career high (with 12 more attempts to break it), he's fourth in the league in post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed at +4.6 (meaning he's let in 4.6 less goals than you'd expect given the saves he's had to make or attempt), leads all goalkeepers in passes of more than 40 yards completed (with 126), and Austin's currently second-best in goals allowed with 24 — with only Philadelphia doing better with 23 (and having used two goalkeepers).
Though it hasn't really shown up on the scoresheet as dramatically, you could also make an MVP case for Owen Wolff, who is the co-leader in goal contributions and assists, secured the penalty kick allowing Verde to take its Open Cup quarterfinal game to a shootout, and then converted the winning penalty kick to get them to the semis — and he's doing that from a supplemental roster spot as a 20-year-old.
While Wolff might not be the pure No. 10 that Verde clearly needs, he's arguably the closest player to that on the roster right now (other than Diego Rubio, who has many more miles on him), and should the team find its way to the playoffs, Wolff will likely have a hand in that. Certainly, the two remaining healthy designated players will have to pick it up, and other players will need to add to their current season-long goal tallies of zero, one, or two.
But even if Pereira isn't headed out, which would leave Wolff as the midfielder with the most Verde appearances – we're still counting Gallagher as a defender, right? — Nico Estévez will be counting on Wolff to continue to perform.
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.
On July 6, 2024, Austin FC moved into playoff position – if you're not bogged down in semantics around the play-in game and consider 9th place the playoffs – with a 2-1 win over NYCFC, improving to 8-6-6 on the season.
Only July 16, 2025, Austin FC also moved into playoff position – if you're not bogged down in semantics around the play-in game and also consider 8th place the playoffs – with a 2-1 win over LA Galaxy, improving to 8-6-6 on the season.
Reminded of this by the Austin FC Ireland account, which does comparisons for all five seasons as a regular service, this got us thinking about this 22-game mark as a pivotal juncture.
You know what happened to close out 2024, and in case you forget, I'm here to quickly remind you that you don't want 2024 to repeat itself.
Verde finished on a 3-6-3 skid which included a 1-0 loss to Seattle and a 3-1 loss to Dallas in the following two games, a 2-2 draw to Charlotte (which included Mikkel Desler's debut), a Leagues Cup break that included two improbable home wins to Liga MX giants Pumas and Monterrey (followed by an away loss at LAFC per the tournament organizers' scheduling whims), a win away at Nashville that featured the best Osman Bukari in Verde goal to date, and then a five-match winless streak that put the team on the brink of playoff elimination — a ridiculous, mathematically-quite-probable brink that put head coach Josh Wolff in limbo.
The playoff hopes, and Wolff's tenure at Austin, ended with an away loss to the LA Galaxy; Wolff was dismissed the following morning, and interim coach Davy Arnaud won the meaningless season finale over the Rapids.
Of course, there are reasons to hope that 2025 won't be like 2024. Let's start with the schedule.
What's next for Austin
A month ago, we discussed the relatively "easy" schedule for Verde down the stretch based on opponents' points per game; since posting that article, the team's only played three matches. They lost to Seattle, drew against New England at home, beat the Galaxy, and its home match against LAFC — one of the trickier tests remaining on the regular-season schedule – was delayed due to catastrophic flooding in Central Texas and got moved to become the penultimate match of the season during an international break in which each team's biggest scoring threat will likely be across the Atlantic.
Here's the remaining schedule (with their current places in the table for regular-season matches):
There's a bit of a Leagues Cup gap, a bit of Open Cup congestion for at least one match (hopefully two), but it's pretty much a match each Saturday against mostly the bottom tier of the league. To put the ease of the schedule another way, 10 of the remaining 12 regular-season matches are against teams that are 9th or below. Take the two matches against San Jose out of the equation, and exactly 2/3 of the games are against teams who would miss the playoffs if today's table was the final one.
The next six matches are against teams with a combined 0.98 points per game, with a combined 33-69-40 record. Of the six, all but San Jose already have double-digit losses on the season. That's not, of course, a guarantee that Verde will stack wins — consider the recent scoreless draw against a Revs team that's now 6-10-7 (on 1.09 PPG) — but the schedule we regarded as favorable is particularly favorable heading into and through the Labor Day holiday.
Who's coming? Who's going?
The summer transfer window opens on Thursday, July 24, the day after the All-Star Game, and we already know of one incoming player. Nicky Beloko, most recently with FC Luzern in the Swiss Super League, was pledged back in January and will be available when Austin plays at Audi Field on Saturday — and since he's already been training with the team, you might expect him to make a sub appearance.
With the rumor that Dani Pereira is off to Coventry City — a move several years in the making if you believe all the past and present reporting (which includes what Pereira himself told We Are Austin TV) — Beloko becomes a roughly like-for-like swap in central midfield, making the roster a little more flexible for sporting director Rodolfo Borrell to do work — though international spots are still at a premium.
There's also the somewhat baffling rumor that Diego Palacios is coming from Corinthians on a loan, and there's enough smoke around that rumor that you should expect it to be announced soon.
Palacios (still just 26, despite being a pro since 2014) certainly provides Verde an upgrade at left back, but given the need in other positions (attacking midfield, center back, and now striker thanks to the Brandon Vázquez injury), it's a little puzzling as a move unless it's coupled with another outgoing player.
Given that Palacios is a left back, perhaps it's Žan Kolmanič that could be going out, though there have also been rumors about Jáder Obrian heading to Colombia. As Jon Gallagher has played a lot of wing this season and Robert Taylor remains on this roster, perhaps Guilherme Biro will function as the temporary fourth center back solution until the offseason, when I would expect Julio Cascante to either sign a new, more club-friendly contract or move from the club, and center back would become even more of a need position.
(Remember that Verde's been playing with three true first-team center backs since moving Leo Väisänen just four months ago.)
There are a few more incoming player rumors we should keep on the radar, just in case:
At present, Verde has one international spot left, and it's a ninth spot secured in a trade; they'll be back to eight next year unless they're able to make a deal to grab another spot. Obrian leaving would free up another spot, but the other seven belong to Beloko (who just got here), Biro, Bukari, Oleksandr Svatok, and three players who arrived in 2025 — Nicolás Dubersarsky, Besard Šabović, and Myrto Uzuni. It's hard to imagine, of those seven, who would be able to secure a green card or who would be dealt so relatively soon after getting here.
(Biro, having arrived in January 2024, has the longest tenure of those seven, and Obrian arrived via the league's Re-Entry Draft the month before Biro arrived.)
The MVP candidates so far
If you have to look for one MVP on the team, Brad Stuver is the most obvious choice. He's finally an All-Star (and arguably might have been this season even with another coach selecting), he has eight clean sheets to match his career high (with 12 more attempts to break it), he's fourth in the league in post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed at +4.6 (meaning he's let in 4.6 less goals than you'd expect given the saves he's had to make or attempt), leads all goalkeepers in passes of more than 40 yards completed (with 126), and Austin's currently second-best in goals allowed with 24 — with only Philadelphia doing better with 23 (and having used two goalkeepers).
Though it hasn't really shown up on the scoresheet as dramatically, you could also make an MVP case for Owen Wolff, who is the co-leader in goal contributions and assists, secured the penalty kick allowing Verde to take its Open Cup quarterfinal game to a shootout, and then converted the winning penalty kick to get them to the semis — and he's doing that from a supplemental roster spot as a 20-year-old.
While Wolff might not be the pure No. 10 that Verde clearly needs, he's arguably the closest player to that on the roster right now (other than Diego Rubio, who has many more miles on him), and should the team find its way to the playoffs, Wolff will likely have a hand in that. Certainly, the two remaining healthy designated players will have to pick it up, and other players will need to add to their current season-long goal tallies of zero, one, or two.
But even if Pereira isn't headed out, which would leave Wolff as the midfielder with the most Verde appearances – we're still counting Gallagher as a defender, right? — Nico Estévez will be counting on Wolff to continue to perform.
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.
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