The Verde Report: Even in a Down Year for Austin FC, the City Showed Up

Covering Major League Soccer isn't for the faint of heart.

Okay, some perspective ... it's not war reporting. There's no life-saving or even life-altering information being gathered, shared or analyzed in the pro soccer domain. Still, by sports media standards, MLS is a bear. The league's rules are ridiculously complex and impossible to keep track of, coaches and players are mostly painfully closed-off, and stoking interest – readership, viewership, listenership – is a constant uphill battle.

Even in a city like Austin – which, despite some less-than-capacity crowds toward the end of the 2023 Austin FC season, is still officially home to the league's longest active home sellout streak – the week to week appetite for MLS coverage is tepid at best. Whose fault is that? Well, nobody's, really. It's just the way it is right now.

Winning certainly helps, and lord knows Austin FC did not do a ton of that this season, finishing with the fifth-worst record in the league at 10-9-15. Side note: As long as this column lives with me as its author, I will not consider myself a "fan" of the Verde and Black, but that doesn't mean I don't hope for their success. As any sports journalist who's worked a beat will tell you, it's a lot more fun to cover a winning team than a losing one.

From that standpoint, 2022 was a blast. Feel-good stories abounded as Austin FC blew away even its most optimistic expectations all the way to the Western Conference finals. There was even a brief moment where I thought Josh Wolff and I might be on the way to becoming golfing buddies. But then the calendar flipped to 2023, and the club's fortunes took a turn.

Coincidentally or causally (most likely a bit of both), we bid goodbye to some respected colleagues and valued friends in the Q2 Stadium press box between then and now. This city has long been fortunate to have a quantity and quality of sportswriters, TV reporters, and other content creators invested in the local soccer team that would be the envy of most MLS markets, even as the numbers trend in a suboptimal direction.

While Lionel Messi and David Beckham and Apple TV all continue to push MLS closer to the threshold of national and international relevance, here in Central Texas, the 2023 season felt like a bad hangover. And yet, two evenings in particular reminded me exactly why this town's soccer community is special enough to withstand a decade of lousy seasons (though let's not test this theory, Austin FC).

The first came the day that fan favorite winger Diego Fagúndez learned he had been traded to the Los Angeles Galaxy. In mere hours a spontaneous farewell party had materialized at Hopsquad Brewing Co. that same evening, with hundreds of Verde fans and Fagúndez himself in attendance, not to mention the half-dozen or so media members who dropped what they were doing on a Tuesday evening to provide coverage.

The second came the night Fagúndez made his Q2 return with the Galaxy on Sept. 24. Austin FC's playoff hopes were already all but dashed as a storm pelted the area with golf ball-sized hail well into the night. When the match eventually got going, several thousand Verde fans inexplicably stuck around to watch a match that concluded (in heartbreaking fashion for ATXFC) well past 1am on a Monday morning. As did an entire press box full of caffeinated journalists.

Even though ATX season 3 proved to be a dud, there's plenty of reason to look forward to round four in a league where teams' fortunes can turn on a dime. Whatever the on-field product brings, this town has proven that it will do its part in the stands – and beyond. We'll continue to do ours in the press box.

Thanks for following along this year. Catch you in 2024.