Welcome to this year's exercise in masochism!
So far, Austin FC's defense — through 15 matches in 2026 — has let in an alarming 31 goals. Extrapolate that over a full 34-match season, and that's 70 goals, which is a lot. To better understand how it's happening, and maybe to speak some defensive improvements into being, we wanted to take part of the time during the break to analyze what's happening here.
Without any further preamble, let's get into it. We'll make this a three-part article because dividing it into two is made inconvenient by Verde's 5-1 loss to San Jose on April 22.
Again, the exercise is to try to see whose defensive lapse contributed most to the goal being scored against Verde — to see what needs to be shored up by who. It's not entirely about assigning blame, and ultimately it's on the whole team to defend — and certainly, breakdowns and turnovers higher up the pitch can also affect what happens in front of goal. But this exercise is ultimately about what's happening when Verde players face danger inside the box.
(Also, just so you know, MLS doesn't allow for video embedding on its goal videos, but the link in the text will get you the goal replay in a new tab.)
