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By Phil West profile image Phil West
7 min read

Single-digit squad: The ongoing quest for an Austin FC striker to reach the 10-goal mark

None of Verde's center forwards have ever reached 10 goals in a single 34-game MLS season. Will it happen in 2024? Will it ever happen?

If you’re looking to get a list together for an Austin FC trivia night, most goals in a season’s a pretty easy one. Of course, it’s Sebastian Driussi with 22 goals in 2022, when he made a run at the MLS MVP award and was an obvious All-Star choice.

Driussi is also, strangely, the only Verde player to ever get above single-digit goals in a single season, doing it twice. In addition to 22 in ‘22, he got to 11 goals in the following season, and with five goals to lead the 2024 edition of Verde, he’s the best bet so far to reach that tier this season.

But as we know, Driussi’s not technically a striker, and hasn’t flourished when he’s played there in such limited minutes you could call those runouts experiments. Driussi’s normally played in a hybrid role: It’s part second striker and part what Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff calls a “dual 10,” but really more like two free-floating 8s above a lone 6 in a three-man midfield.

To make the system work as Wolff envisions it, it doesn’t necessarily need for the center forward to be a goal-scoring machine. While Maxi Urruti scored nine goals in the 2022 regular season, his numbers were far better in three defensive categories than anything he did on the attacking side.

But Urruti’s 2022 season is also the high-water mark for Austin FC strikers so far. None of them have reached the 10-goal mark in the team’s four-year history, and unless Diego Rubio can put together seven goals in the next 16 matches, the striker position will remain a single-digit squad heading into a fifth season.

Let’s review the history.

Gyasi Zardes vs. LAFC
Even Gyasi Zardes, with more than 100 career MLS goals, hasn’t been able to get to the 10-goal mark in a single season for Verde. (Ringo Chiu/Shutterstock)
By Phil West profile image Phil West
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