Franchise
The Story
Austin FC are the team that rose from a relocation fight — and the city that refused to lose soccer. The franchise began as the Columbus Crew, but when owner Anthony Precourt tried to move the Crew to Austin in 2017, Columbus fans revolted: the #SaveTheCrew movement — the most successful fan activism in American sports history — kept the Crew in Ohio. Austin got its own expansion team instead, debuting in 2021.
The Verde made an instant impression: Q2 Stadium — one of the league's best soccer-specific venues — sold out from day one, the supporters' section a wall of green smoke and noise. Austin embraced the team completely: the weird city's team, the murals, the Verde culture. The 2022 run to the conference finals, behind Sebastian Driussi's MVP-caliber brilliance, announced Austin as a real force.
The years since have been rockier — the struggle to build on the 2022 peak, the coaching changes, the search for a consistent contender. But the foundation is undeniable: a soccer-mad city, a beautiful stadium, and a fanbase that showed up before the team even existed. Austin FC was born from controversy; it thrived on devotion.
The post-Wolff Austin FC (2024-present) turned the page: the 2024 42-point season (the playoff miss, the Wolff exit), the Estevez arrival (the new coach, hired fall 2024), and the 2025 reset — the Brandon Vazquez trade (the club-record signing), the ambition to matter in Texas. The 2022 conference finals run (the Driussi MVP candidacy, the second-year miracle) was the peak; the 2023-24 step backs (the playoff misses) the frustration. Q2 Stadium's Austin crowd brings the league's best new atmosphere: the 2021 inaugural roar, the Verde, the belief that the capital's team is coming. The Texas wars with Houston and Dallas define the summer. What Austin FC are now is a franchise resetting — the 2022 peak the proof, the 2025 investment the signal, and the Texas triangle the battleground. In Austin, the Verde's patience wears thin, and the next era starts with the checkbook open.
What defines Austin FC is the origin: a team that exists because two cities fought over soccer — and both won. No Cups yet, but the Verde wall keeps growing. In Austin, FC isn't just an expansion team — it's the proof that this city was always a soccer town.
Related on Previously: MLS Rewind · FC Dallas · Houston Dynamo · Sporting Kansas City · LA Galaxy
Season Outlook
Where They Stand
Austin's season unraveled in May, and the club is still picking through the wreckage. Nico Estévez was fired on May 18 with the Verde sitting 24th overall, and assistant Davy Arnaud has held the interim tag ever since. Through mid-September Austin sat 13th in the West at 7-10-8 — nine games left, and the playoffs a distant dream. The attack has been the problem all year: 32 goals in 25 games, one of the league's bluntest front lines.
What happens next matters more than these final weeks. Austin has one of the league's best soccer-specific atmospheres at Q2 Stadium and an ownership group willing to spend — the permanent coaching hire this winter will define the next era. Captain Ilie Sánchez remains the midfield heartbeat, but the Verde need a genuine star to build around. Until then, the run-in is about pride, auditions, and giving the home crowd something to sing about.
Outlook compiled Oct 2, 2026 from verified reporting — standings as of mid-September 2026; no projections invented
Club History
The Story So Far
Austin FC exists because Austin refused to be ignored. When Columbus Crew owner Anthony Precourt tried to relocate the Crew to Texas in 2017, Austin's soccer community mobilized — and when the Crew stayed put, Precourt got the expansion franchise instead. Announced in 2019 with play beginning in 2021, Austin FC became the first major-league team in one of America's fastest-growing cities, and Q2 Stadium opened to a wall of verde that felt a decade in the making.
The early returns were magical. In just their second season, 2022, Austin finished second in the West and reached the Western Conference final behind Sebastián Driussi's MVP-caliber campaign — the Argentine playmaker scoring 22 goals and turning Q2 into a fortress. It remains the high-water mark: proof of concept that Austin could be a destination, not an outpost.
Sustaining it proved harder. Josh Wolff's tenure ended after the 2024 season, and the Estévez experiment lasted barely a year and a half. Through it all, the supporters' section — La Murga, Los Verdes — never wavered, making Q2 one of the loudest rooms in MLS regardless of the standings.
Austin's story is still being written in its first decade. The ingredients are all there: a soccer-mad city, a beautiful stadium, an identity built on verde pride. What's missing is consistency — the next great Austin team is still an idea waiting for the right coach and the right star to make it real.
