Austin FC’s roster rebuild hints at big risks and big rewards
It’s been a rough few years for Austin FC.
The Texas-based club debuted in MLS in 2021 and made it all the way to the Western Conference Final in its charmed sophomore season. Since then, though, the outfit has struggled to make an impact. It missed out on the MLS Cup playoffs in 2023 and 2024, finishing both seasons with a negative goal difference.
It’s not how things were supposed to go for Austin. The club entered MLS with energy, fanfare and significant financial investment from former Columbus Crew owner Anthony Precourt. But a series of poor roster decisions — many driven by the lightning-in-a-bottle success of the 2022 team — have pushed Austin to the outskirts of the league it intended to dominate.
The club is making moves to change that in 2025. This week, it announced the signing of 26-year-old USMNT striker Brandon Vazquez on a multi-year Designated Player contract. Vazquez arrived from Monterrey in Liga MX for a club-record $10M fee.
“Brandon has already proven to be a goal scorer in both MLS and LIGA MX,” said Austin sporting director Rodolfo Borrell when asked about the signing. And he’s right: Vazquez had a brilliant season with FC Cincinnati back in 2022, slotting home 18 goals over the season for a goal-per-game ratio of .59.
MLS teams must adhere to strict salary and roster regulations; doing so maintains competitiveness across the league and prevents well-funded teams from running away with the competition (see PSG in France or, until recently, Manchester City in England.) Those regulations state that each team can have a maximum of three Designated Players whose salaries exceed the traditional cap.
If a team signs just two, it receives an extra U22 slot for a talented prospect and an additional $2M in general allocation money to spend as it wishes. If it signs three, it doesn’t receive either.
When teams need to rebuild, as tired, struggling Austin certainly does, they tend to opt for fewer Designated Players in order to buy themselves more time and flexibility. In signing Vazquez, Austin has gone in the other direction, opting for three highly-paid Designated Players and taking a gamble on their ability to perform.
Austin sporting director Borrell was right when he said that Vazquez was a good, proven MLS player. But for a $10M fee and a third Designated Player spot, Vazquez can’t just be good: he has to be transformational.
D. C. United’s Christian Benteke is a great comparison point for this. He arrived a few seasons ago with big expectations and delivered upon all of them. Benteke’s recent output — 23 goals for .8 goals per game across the 2024 season — dwarfs Vazquez’s best-ever MLS performance and raises questions about whether Vazquez can contribute at the level required of a Designated Player.
And that matters, because Austin’s existing contracted Designated Players — Argentinian attacker Sebastian Driussi and Ghanaian winger Osman Bukari — haven’t lit the league on fire in recent seasons. Driussi looked excellent back in 2022 but scored just seven goals in 2024; Bukari is a young prospect who arrived last summer with plenty of potential but very little consistency.
It’s not all set in stone for Austin. Driussi may yet find his way out of his Austin contract and back to his home country of Argentina. But this triple barrel Designated Player approach represents a huge gamble for the Austin front office. If it backfires, the team will struggle mightily to change its course.
It’s a big risk and a fascinating one for neutrals to follow. If Vazquez, Bukari and Driussi work well together, Austin will look prescient and wise; if they flop, as they all have in recent seasons, Austin will cap off its 2025 rebuild season looking more broken than ever.
Austin kicks off its 2025 MLS season on Feb. 22 against Sporting Kansas City.
Checkout latest world news below links :
World News || Latest News || U.S. News
Source link
