Fairly decent team, frustrated fans: Your Austin FC end-of-season survey results, Part One

Some of you might remember participating in a recent end-of-season survey I helped circulate; while the MLS portion of that will be released in the week leading up to MLS Cup (by the team at SixOneFive Soccer), I've got Austin FC fan results ready to share from the nearly 200 who took the survey. (And much appreciation to those who took the time to give answers.)

The headline gives away the toplines I gleaned from the survey:

• First, fans feel like the team is a generally good spot overall. Not many feel that this team is going to contend for an MLS Cup, but the majority tilts toward the average-to-good end of the spectrum than the Wooden Spoon end.
• Along with that, fans feel Austin FC head coach Nico Estévez is doing a good job coaching this team, getting appreciable performances from the collective talent assembled.
• But, underneath all that, is roiling frustration: That Austin FC lacks the few transcendental players that could get it to be among the MLS' elite teams, that sporting director Rodolfo Borrell hasn't done enough to help that along, and the frustration is even permeating the game day experience, where some are questioning whether the product on the field, the concessions, and even La Murga de Austin, largely responsible for creating one of the best matchday experiences in the league, are worth the ticket prices.

Let's dig into it. There's a lot, and I spent a fair bit of time sorting through it; collectively, considering how many of you participated, quite a few hours went into this.

Do you consider the season successful?

This one's quite positive.

More than three in four called 2025 a success, and less than five percent said no. The nearly 18% who said "still unsure" were actually answering "still unsure, depending on the playoffs," with the survey starting before the playoffs did, so given the first-round exit in two games, that can't really help. And yet, Verde did perform well enough in the first match against LAFC to win, and perhaps that was better than expected for some.

How is Nico doing?

Similarly, reactions to Estévez's first year are positive.

Less than 2% want him out, with the rest split eerily evenly between good and meh. If we do this again next year, I'll be very interested to see how this shifts based on whether Verde can do better than 6th.

What was Verde's biggest accomplishment in 2025?

While Austin FC did get to the playoffs for the first time since 2022, it also got to its first-ever final, and I can't say I'm surprised by the results.

Man, that final still stings. It may never cease to be a painful memory ... until Verde win a first final?

Are you Team Back Four or Team Back Five?

On the question of how the team should align in the back line — with a more traditional two center back and two fullback set up, vs. three center backs and two wingbacks, the majority was Team Trust the Coaches to Deploy Either Situationally, but more of you were Back Five than Back Four, which makes center back acquisition in the offseason (assuming you're prescient on one roster decision in particular) all the more interesting.

Your 2025 MVP

Remember: He doesn't turn 21 until Dec. 30! Congratulations to Owen Wolff.

It really came down to Wolff and Brad Stuver, and Wolff got more than 2/3 of the vote.

The roster decision questions

While we do know of one already — Diego Rubio made a farewell social media post indicating he won't be back in 2026 — Borrell is leaving the roster decision announcements quite close to the Nov. 26 deadline, compared to the many other MLS teams who have already announced who is staying and going.

Let's go through them one by one; the questions involved whether to activate the 2026 option on the player or not. (At that point, the team could renegotiate a new contract with the player, or the player is free to pursue opportunities with other clubs.)

Julio Cascante

I think we've seen the last of an OG Austin player in Verde, and the majority of you seem to agree.

Stefan Cleveland

Many seem ready to try Damian Las as Verde's backup goalkeeper.

Brendan Hines-Ike

This option pickup makes a lot of sense, and a lot of you agreed.

Like, an overwhelming number of you agreed.

Dani Pereira

I mean, we probably didn't even need to ask this, but we're being completists.

I was a little surprised to see about 5% say let him go. (I assume a fair bit of this is "find him a buyer overseas," which is an offseason conversation I'm sure we'll be having here, on Emergency Podcast, or both.)

Diego Rubio

Keeping the "I'd take him on a supplemental" catch phrase among a Slack-connected group of Austin FC fans in mind, Rubio's supplemental spot on the roster, and his ability to play a 9 1/2 role (and having stayed upright for most of the time Brandon Vázquez was injured) was valued by a lot of you.

But he's gone now.

Ilie Sánchez

At yesterday's Media Cup game, I got in a conversation with the Statesman's Colby Gordon and the Chronicle's Eric Goodman, where Goodman concluded I'll be writing some sort of paean-leaning column to Ilie should he leave. He's most certainly right.

I suspect I should, through the tears, start drafting.

Speaking of roster decisions ...

I also was curious what you thought of Borrell's performance as sporting director. Specifically, I asked, "With five stars being the best and one star being Claudio Reyna, how would you rate Rodolfo Borrell's performance as sporting director to date (considering player acquisitions, contract and buyout negotiations, and GAM wrangling)?"

Here's where you landed.

Google Sheets really does not want to let me show that the One Star rating (in orange; I think you can all figure out why I chose that color) is 1.1%. Most of you are in the all-right-to-pretty-good zone, and I'd assess that as fair given the shape of the roster when Borrell arrived vs. the shape of the roster now.

But being satisfied with that doesn't mean you can't be jealous of LAFC landing Son Heung-min and Vancouver landing Thomas Müller during the summer while Verde's sole summer acquisition was a U22 defender from Serbia. Mateja Đorđević may turn out to be a very shrewd signing as we look back on Verde's 2030 MLS Cup-winning season helmed by head coach Ilie Sánchez, but it's not delivering the level of excitement those other fan bases are feeling right now as they prepare to face off in a match to determine who goes on to the Western Conference final.

What's in Part Two?

Since this is a fair bit of reading, I'll start Part Two tomorrow with one more chart — how fans are feeling going into 2026 — and then I'll dig into your specific comments. I've chosen a number of good representative ones; they're submitted anonymously, so I don't know who's responsible for them, but taken together, it'll give you a good read on where the fan base is.