How is possession changing for the new-look Austin FC?
Austin FC's possession numbers and xG values haven't been sterling in 2026. But the changes made under Davy Arnaud are perceptible and bearing out in the numbers, per one analyst.
Looking at just the raw numbers, you might conclude that the 2026 version of Austin FC doesn't especially like having the ball.
But as with many facets of Austin FC, there's a distinct difference between how the team played before the World Cup break, under the stewardship of Nico Estévez, and after the World Cup break, when interim head coach Davy Arnaud instituted his new formation and play style principles.
Let's look at the basics first. Per FBRef, Austin FC is 20th in the league in possession to this point, having the ball 48.7% of the time. Possession doesn't necessarily correlate with being good, of course — Houston, Dallas, and Philadelphia are all playoff bound teams with lower possession totals than Verde — but there's also some correlation between how much a team has the ball and how much it scores. It's nowhere near 1:1 correlation, but it's notable that three of the four highest scoring teams in the league (Miami, Vancouver, and Nashville) are in the top seven in possession.
Austin is tied for 25th in goals per game with Montréal and Houston, though that's actually due to better production since Arnaud took over. Verde have 1.26 goals per game now; when he took over after the SKC home loss, they had played 14 matches and scored 16 goals, for 1.14 goals per match. In Arnaud's 13 matches in charge, the team has scored 19 goals for 1.46 goals per match — good for 17th in the league, just above LAFC, if extrapolating those games over the whole season.
But, over the whole season, Verde are 29th in expected goals, though happily overperforming xG, scoring 35 goals on the season compared to a 27.8 xG. Only SKC is lower, with 26.9 xG and a slighter overperformance, with just 31 goals on the season.
Let's talk about 'possession context'
Soccer is not just about having the ball; it's about what you do when you have the ball and how dangerous your team can be. Jake Burgess, on his Sunday League Stats site, did a recent deep dive on what he calls "possession context," analyzing those MLS teams he finds most interesting.
He laid out groundwork for the four types of possession to begin. From his article:
Controlled Possessions: An uninterrupted on-ball team sequence that includes at least five completed passes and lasts at least 10 seconds.
Transitional Possessions: On-ball team possession sequences that do not meet the controlled possession requirements and do not qualify as a counterattack or set-piece (we’ll get to these). These are often short spells on the ball or quick changes of possession.
Counterattacks: On-ball team possession sequences that begin with a successful defensive action and advance the ball a meaningful vertical distance within a short amount of time.
Set Pieces: A sequence that begins with a dead ball and has five or fewer completed passes, without meeting the controlled possession threshold.
He then explained how how several teams were particularly adept with their possession — especially Vancouver.
Vancouver will kill you through controlled possession in advanced areas of the pitch. They’ll also press the hell out of you high up the field. They have the highest press of any team in the league, while generating elite possession-value and expected-goals numbers through both controlled possessions and counterattacks.
They also have the most field tilt in MLS. It’s typically hard to score against a team that keeps the ball far away from its own goal. It becomes even harder when Andrés Cubas is anchoring the midfield.
Cubas has the most tackles in the league by a wide margin. He’s essentially putting out any fires that Vancouver allows through the cracks. He also has the second-most ball recoveries and sixth-most interceptions.
Going forward, Vancouver love to get the ball wide. They are above the 90th percentile in both crosses and cutback passes per match. They have played the third-most crosses in the league, behind only San Jose and Philadelphia, and the fifth-most cutback passes.
For their wide play, he credited their depth at winger — depth they've built on from the offseason, when they were so deep there that they allowed Austin FC to pick up Jayden Nelson — and Édier Ocampo as an elite wingback. Graphics look like this.
San Diego, another team he highlighted, was particularly good at controlled possessions, but in an unusual way — perhaps further illuminating what happened last Saturday.
San Diego have the highest number of controlled possessions of any team in the league. What’s interesting is that those possessions also occur more centrally and deeper than the vast majority of teams in MLS. Only Colorado possesses the ball deeper on the pitch, or closer to their own goal.
For the majority of the season, San Diego have operated out of a 4-3-3 that, in possession, can look more like a 2-5-3. The center backs combine with a line of five deep in the field, and once the opposing team’s press is broken, San Diego transition into a much more direct attack.
Not surprisingly, Manu Duah and Jeppe Tverskov lead the league in completed passes. Duah ranks 2nd in total progressive passes behind Carles Gil, which indicates how often he finds himself in positions where he is playing forward to combine with one of the players in the line of 5 ahead of him.
San Diego are amongst the lowest teams in the league in terms of volume of transitional possessions and counterattacks.
So, what was Austin? And what is Austin now?
Though Austin FC wasn't one of the teams he highlighted, I reached out with a specific question about Verde's pre-World Cup and post-World Cup possession that Burgess graciously answered.
First, let's look at 2026 Verde before the World Cup break; this does factor in one match Arnaud coached the team — the 3-0 loss at St. Louis City SC. You'll note that two primary measures of effectiveness, possession value generated and xG generated, do not flatter the team.
However, it's better under the new-look approach, and Burgess sees evidence of that approach in the improved numbers.
Every number is up from where it was before the World Cup break, and it's especially pronounced in what he's calling "possession value generated" as well as possession width. Here's his read on it — notably, how integral wingbacks are to the way Verde's playing.
Austin seems to have shifted toward keeping significantly more possession post-World Cup. Over their last five games, they rank in the 83rd percentile in their tendency to play through controlled possessions. They’ve also been effective in these phases (mostly in the last 5 games) ranking in the 90th percentile in possession value and 60th percentile in xG generated from controlled possession sequences.
They tend to possess the ball in wide areas and closer to their own goal than most teams. That makes sense given that, outside of Facundo Torres, Jon Gallagher and Joseph Rosales have been two of their biggest possession value contributors. The change in style has coincided with a shift from a 4-4-2/4-2-3-1 to a back three with extremely advanced wingbacks.
Gallagher and Rosales are sometimes the highest players on the pitch. They were already getting high earlier in the season, but they’re now pushing even higher. This has coincided with a major increase in the width of key passes and the number of shots created from crosses. Both wingbacks are heavily involved and carry a much higher PV burden than most outside backs across the league.
Interestingly, Austin’s passing length and number of switches have also spiked over the last five games while their vertical passing has decreased.
Overall, looking at all phases of possession, he adds:
I would argue that on the ball, post-World Cup, they lean towards a controlled possession style of play compared to the rest of MLS. They previously had the ball for shorter spurts of time and found themselves in more transitional situations with the ball.
He also has a read on how Verde's counterattacking has evolved.
During the first half of the season, Austin rarely counterattacked. Those numbers have increased somewhat over the last 10 games, and over the last five they’ve been fairly effective from a still-limited number of counterattacking opportunities.
However, when it comes to transitional play:
Their tendency to attack in transitional situations has decreased significantly. Over the last 10 games, they have generated the least xG and possession value in the league from these types of possessions.
Finally, though his model focuses less on defensive actions, he does note:
They still prefer to get compact, absorb pressure, and protect their goal. Unlike their attacking approach, there doesn’t appear to have been a major structural shift defensively.
That lines up with nerdery from Futi's John Muller, who in his fascinating breakdown of playing styles published back in February, unveiled four different styles:
Press and Possess is the classic Guardiola ideal, bringing the ball forward with controlled possession and keeping it in the opponent’s half with a tight pressing net.
Control and Regroup sides are patient in possession but less aggressive off the ball, preferring to fall back into a compact defensive shape after losing possession.
Launch and Squish teams play for field position, thumping the ball forward quickly and charging after it to suffocate the opponent with aggressive pressing.
Bunker and Counter is pure reactive football, the stuff that’s kept underdogs scrappy since time immemorial. These teams fall back instead of pressing and try to hit the space behind the opponent with quick attacks.
Austin FC, as you probably surmised, is a Control and Regroup team. (And they were this heading into the season, so in that sense, they haven't changed. They've just gotten better at controlling and regrouping.
Leaving it late (but in a good way)
I would argue that the defensive principles Austin FC is displaying now might not as perceptible, but the mental aspects of what the players dodefensively has changed. Head-coach-in-waiting Jim Curtin's non-negotiables include a compactness that's evident in how Arnaud has the squad setting up defensively, and the vast difference in goals given up late in matches has been key in maintaining the eight-match unbeaten streak.
Within the streak, the only two late goals allowed ended up inconsequential to the outcomes — a 90th-minute goal given up against Seattle in a 2-1 win after Guilherme Biro's 87th-minute goal became the ultimate decider, and the 89th-minute PK goal in the 2-1 win over Portland, which temporarily turned a win into a draw, was offset by Oleksandr Svatok's stoppage-time answer.
In fact, during this unbeaten run, Verde have scored six goals in the 73rd minute or later that have proven decisive and allowed them to get more points than they would have without those. It insured a win against Seattle (two points gained), turned a draw against Portland into a win (two points gained, up to four), allowed the team to draw instead of lose to Colorado (one point gained, up to five), and with a three-goal burst, salvaged a point against San Diego (getting the team up to six, and also keeping their goal differential from going further into the negative).
Is that attributable to possession? The numbers show that Verde are more goal-dangerous under Arnaud then they were earlier in the season, though in looking at possession value and xG coming from that, they're more middle of the MLS pack than at an elite level.
Possession's not everything, of course — in the win against Vancouver at BC Place, Verde made the most of, per Futi's tally, 31% possession and an xG of 1 (compared to 52% possession, with 17% contested, an xG of 2.84, and a shot disparity of 21 to 4) to win 2-1. Sometimes your chances come good and your opponent hits the crossbar a couple of times and has a whole lot of other heartbreak happen.
But even in that match, Verde got the vast majority of its comparatively meager xG through possession, getting precious little off the set pieces that kept Verde afloat earlier in the season.
It's not entirely necessary to have a lot of the ball to win in soccer if other factors are kicking in for you. But what the before and after shows is that Austin FC's decidedly improved in how it's using the ball, and that's translating to better form. If it doesn't pay off immediately with the postseason, it's at least something to theoretically build on when Curtin comes in to add to the foundation now being laid.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts.
Also, we're fully in the 21st century now; join us on Instagram to get updates on all our stories and podcast releases.
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Looking at just the raw numbers, you might conclude that the 2026 version of Austin FC doesn't especially like having the ball.
But as with many facets of Austin FC, there's a distinct difference between how the team played before the World Cup break, under the stewardship of Nico Estévez, and after the World Cup break, when interim head coach Davy Arnaud instituted his new formation and play style principles.
Let's look at the basics first. Per FBRef, Austin FC is 20th in the league in possession to this point, having the ball 48.7% of the time. Possession doesn't necessarily correlate with being good, of course — Houston, Dallas, and Philadelphia are all playoff bound teams with lower possession totals than Verde — but there's also some correlation between how much a team has the ball and how much it scores. It's nowhere near 1:1 correlation, but it's notable that three of the four highest scoring teams in the league (Miami, Vancouver, and Nashville) are in the top seven in possession.
Austin is tied for 25th in goals per game with Montréal and Houston, though that's actually due to better production since Arnaud took over. Verde have 1.26 goals per game now; when he took over after the SKC home loss, they had played 14 matches and scored 16 goals, for 1.14 goals per match. In Arnaud's 13 matches in charge, the team has scored 19 goals for 1.46 goals per match — good for 17th in the league, just above LAFC, if extrapolating those games over the whole season.
But, over the whole season, Verde are 29th in expected goals, though happily overperforming xG, scoring 35 goals on the season compared to a 27.8 xG. Only SKC is lower, with 26.9 xG and a slighter overperformance, with just 31 goals on the season.
Let's talk about 'possession context'
Soccer is not just about having the ball; it's about what you do when you have the ball and how dangerous your team can be. Jake Burgess, on his Sunday League Stats site, did a recent deep dive on what he calls "possession context," analyzing those MLS teams he finds most interesting.
He laid out groundwork for the four types of possession to begin. From his article:
He then explained how how several teams were particularly adept with their possession — especially Vancouver.
For their wide play, he credited their depth at winger — depth they've built on from the offseason, when they were so deep there that they allowed Austin FC to pick up Jayden Nelson — and Édier Ocampo as an elite wingback. Graphics look like this.
San Diego, another team he highlighted, was particularly good at controlled possessions, but in an unusual way — perhaps further illuminating what happened last Saturday.
So, what was Austin? And what is Austin now?
Though Austin FC wasn't one of the teams he highlighted, I reached out with a specific question about Verde's pre-World Cup and post-World Cup possession that Burgess graciously answered.
First, let's look at 2026 Verde before the World Cup break; this does factor in one match Arnaud coached the team — the 3-0 loss at St. Louis City SC. You'll note that two primary measures of effectiveness, possession value generated and xG generated, do not flatter the team.
However, it's better under the new-look approach, and Burgess sees evidence of that approach in the improved numbers.
Every number is up from where it was before the World Cup break, and it's especially pronounced in what he's calling "possession value generated" as well as possession width. Here's his read on it — notably, how integral wingbacks are to the way Verde's playing.
Overall, looking at all phases of possession, he adds:
He also has a read on how Verde's counterattacking has evolved.
However, when it comes to transitional play:
Finally, though his model focuses less on defensive actions, he does note:
That lines up with nerdery from Futi's John Muller, who in his fascinating breakdown of playing styles published back in February, unveiled four different styles:
Austin FC, as you probably surmised, is a Control and Regroup team. (And they were this heading into the season, so in that sense, they haven't changed. They've just gotten better at controlling and regrouping.
Leaving it late (but in a good way)
I would argue that the defensive principles Austin FC is displaying now might not as perceptible, but the mental aspects of what the players dodefensively has changed. Head-coach-in-waiting Jim Curtin's non-negotiables include a compactness that's evident in how Arnaud has the squad setting up defensively, and the vast difference in goals given up late in matches has been key in maintaining the eight-match unbeaten streak.
Within the streak, the only two late goals allowed ended up inconsequential to the outcomes — a 90th-minute goal given up against Seattle in a 2-1 win after Guilherme Biro's 87th-minute goal became the ultimate decider, and the 89th-minute PK goal in the 2-1 win over Portland, which temporarily turned a win into a draw, was offset by Oleksandr Svatok's stoppage-time answer.
In fact, during this unbeaten run, Verde have scored six goals in the 73rd minute or later that have proven decisive and allowed them to get more points than they would have without those. It insured a win against Seattle (two points gained), turned a draw against Portland into a win (two points gained, up to four), allowed the team to draw instead of lose to Colorado (one point gained, up to five), and with a three-goal burst, salvaged a point against San Diego (getting the team up to six, and also keeping their goal differential from going further into the negative).
Is that attributable to possession? The numbers show that Verde are more goal-dangerous under Arnaud then they were earlier in the season, though in looking at possession value and xG coming from that, they're more middle of the MLS pack than at an elite level.
Possession's not everything, of course — in the win against Vancouver at BC Place, Verde made the most of, per Futi's tally, 31% possession and an xG of 1 (compared to 52% possession, with 17% contested, an xG of 2.84, and a shot disparity of 21 to 4) to win 2-1. Sometimes your chances come good and your opponent hits the crossbar a couple of times and has a whole lot of other heartbreak happen.
But even in that match, Verde got the vast majority of its comparatively meager xG through possession, getting precious little off the set pieces that kept Verde afloat earlier in the season.
It's not entirely necessary to have a lot of the ball to win in soccer if other factors are kicking in for you. But what the before and after shows is that Austin FC's decidedly improved in how it's using the ball, and that's translating to better form. If it doesn't pay off immediately with the postseason, it's at least something to theoretically build on when Curtin comes in to add to the foundation now being laid.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) wherever you get your podcasts.
Also, we're fully in the 21st century now; join us on Instagram to get updates on all our stories and podcast releases.
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