You might be wondering how the Nico Estévez hire is going to work out for Austin FC. It was announced on Friday, and since then, fan reactions have ranged from guarded optimism to a Change.org petition calling to “prevent Austin FC from hiring Nico Estévez,” even though he’s already been hired.
In our initial reflection about the hire, we consulted two writers who follow FC Dallas about as thoroughly as anyone in the business for their takes on the hire. They had ultimately equivocal things to say, pointing out gains he made in his transformative debut season and then problems that arose along the way that eventually led to his mid-2024 dismissal.
Yet, as local statsmaster Chase Hoffman calculated, “FC Dallas had the highest PPG bump this season after firing their coach: A .625 PPG / 71% increase. Had they kept Estevez, on .875 PPG, they'd have finished in 13th place, and would have been second worst in MLS, topping only legendarily bad San Jose. If they'd had the 1.5 PPG they've gotten from Luccin-as-interim, they'd have finished 7th.”
Assuming you want to feel better about this hire, Striker alumnus Jon Arnold — who has been covering FC Dallas for years and has also moved into its broadcast booth for some matches — has you covered. In assessing it, he thinks about not just the coach’s body of work, but how he might get along with his new boss, sporting director Rodolfo Borrell.
