Don’t look now, but Austin FC is 90 solid minutes away from the first perfect month of soccer in club history.
Granted, June has been an abnormally light month with just three matches on the schedule, but after back-to-back hard-fought wins against the Colorado Rapids and New York Red Bulls, the Verde and Black are becoming reacquainted with an elusive old friend: momentum.
Standing in the club’s way of a three-match winning streak is a trip to the PNW to lock horns Saturday with the always-tough Seattle Sounders. Since the Sounders joined MLS in 2007, Lumen Field has consistently been one of the league’s most difficult places to play. However, Austin FC has acquitted itself better than you’d expect there, taking one win and two draws from four prior visits (compared to no wins and just one draw in four occasions playing the Sounders in Austin).
Verde will also have a distinct edge over Rave Green in the rest department. Coming off a full weeklong break, Austin FC last played a match on June 14. Since then, Seattle has toiled through three matches in the FIFA Club World Cup group stage, losing all three in what was dubbed the “group of death” for the tournament.
Adding to Austin’s advantage, Seattle will be without two defensive starters in Nouhou and Jon Bell after both were shown red cards three minutes apart in the Sounders’ previous MLS match against Vancouver.
Needless to say, Austin FC’s players have nothing less than victory on their minds.
“For us, that’s a game that we’re already thinking about,” goalkeeper Brad Stuver said immediately following the club’s 2-1 win over the Red Bulls on the 14th. “We can already think about getting three points there.”
Stuver’s confidence was shared throughout the ATX locker room. There is a hope and a belief that things will start coming up Verde much more frequently than they did in the first half of the season.
“I think we have felt very unlucky in a lot of situations earlier this season, so the fact that a couple balls are bouncing our way now, it’s something that we’ve got to keep doing,” said striker Brandon Vazquez, now up to a team-high eight goals in all competitions. “I think we make our own luck. We build our own luck. So we just got to keep focused and keep working hard.”
And for the players whose seasons haven’t taken off yet, including club record signing Myrto Uzuni, head coach Nico Estévez thinks the week off could be just what the doctor ordered.
The Albanian forward, as well as Ghanaian teammate Osman Bukari, used the break to travel home and spend time with their families, who have yet to be able to make the move to Austin.
“Stay with the family, enjoy them, see their kids, and I’m thinking this is going to help both to come with a new energy,” Estévez said.
MLS, as we often say, is as forgiving as it gets in competitive sports. The sins of the first months of the season can be washed away and forgotten with a few solid winning weeks. A refocused and reinvigorated Austin FC is more than capable of ending the club’s two-year playoff drought. But only if that focus and energy translates to wins.
“You can just see the chemistry is building,” Stuver said. “The group is coming together at the right time, and hopefully we can push that through the summer.”
This article appears in June 27 • 2025.
