Published for Austin FC fans — October 2026
By Toxlay Sports Editorial Team · Last updated October 23, 2026
🌳 Austin FC Fans — Your Verde Is Waiting!
A cup final near miss, a midseason coaching change, and the loudest sellout crowd in Texas. Q2 Stadium never stops singing — wear the verde and black and be part of the noise.
The Club
Austin FC was founded on October 12, 2018, and kicked off in 2021 as the league’s 27th franchise — the first major-league pro sports team in the Texas capital, and still the only one. The intertwined oaks on the crest, El Tree, represent the city and the club growing together. Los Verdes. The Verde and Black. Six seasons in, Austin FC is woven into the city’s identity in a way expansion teams are not supposed to manage this fast.
The ownership story is pure Austin: Two Oak Ventures, led by founder and chairman Anthony Precourt, with actor Matthew McConaughey as a minority investor and the club’s famous Minister of Culture. Precourt previously owned the Columbus Crew, and Austin FC was born from the deal that kept the Crew in Columbus while Precourt received an expansion team in Texas — a piece of MLS history that fans of both clubs still argue about, loudly, whenever they meet.
Home is Q2 Stadium in north Austin, capacity 20,738 — and it sells out every single league match. Whatever happens on the pitch, the drums do not stop and the whole building bounces. Visiting teams know they have been in a game, and visiting fans know they have been out-sung. The crowd is not Austin’s problem. In 2026, winning at home was.
The question every Austin fan types into Google — who coaches Austin FC? — has a two-part answer this year. Davy Arnaud, the longtime MLS midfielder and assistant, is the interim head coach for the rest of 2026. Jim Curtin, the former Philadelphia Union boss, was appointed on June 8, 2026 and takes over the moment the season ends. It is an unusual arrangement, and it frames everything about the austin fc schedule between now and Decision Day: a team playing out one era while the next one watches from the stands.
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#10 Uzuni — Austin FC Style Jersey
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The Albanian livewire. Seven league goals, four more in the Leagues Cup run, and the penalty that had Q2 dreaming of a trophy — the Heartbeat Kit’s No. 10.
Last Season (2025): A Playoff Return and a Cup Final
Nico Estévez’s first season delivered what Austin had been waiting for since 2022: a return to the playoffs. The Verde finished sixth in the Western Conference — only the second postseason berth in club history — before running into a wall in Round One. Los Angeles FC swept the Best-of-3, winning 2–1 in Los Angeles on October 29 and 4–1 at Q2 on November 2, with Son Heung-min and Denis Bouanga simply a level above. A lesson, and a benchmark.
But the story of Austin’s 2025 was the U.S. Open Cup — a club-best run to the final. El Paso Locomotive 3–2 in the Round of 32. Houston Dynamo 3–1 in the Round of 16. San Jose beaten on penalties after a 2–2 draw in the quarter-final. Minnesota United 2–1 after extra time in the semi-final, CJ Fodrey’s 120th-minute winner sending Q2 into delirium. Then, on October 1, 2025, the final at home against Nashville SC: Myrto Uzuni’s penalty in first-half stoppage time had Austin level and dreaming, but Nashville won it 2–1. The closest the Verde have ever come to a first major trophy. Individually, homegrown Owen Wolff led the league scoring with seven goals, while Brandon Vázquez and Uzuni topped all competitions with nine each — the standard this squad is now judged against.
Best Players Right Now
Facundo Torres — #11, right winger, Designated Player. The marquee attacker and chief creator: four goals and a team-leading seven assists in 30 league matches, Austin’s set-piece taker and its highest-paid player. The Uruguay international is signed through June 2030 — the player Jim Curtin’s rebuild will be built around, and the first name on every austin fc roster search for a reason.
Myrto Uzuni — #10, left winger / forward, Designated Player. The Albania international has seven league goals and ten across all competitions, including four in the Leagues Cup Phase One run. When a lower-body injury kept him out for stretches, Austin’s driest scoring spells tracked exactly with his absence. Signed through December 2027, and the heartbeat of the Heartbeat Kit.
Christian Ramírez — #21, striker. The surprise top scorer: a team-leading nine league goals in 28 matches at age 35, from a waiver-wire pickup who has out-scored both Designated Player forwards. His contract runs through December 2026 — one of the first decisions waiting on Curtin’s desk.
Brandon Vázquez — #9, striker, Designated Player. The USMNT forward was a club-record signing from Monterrey in January 2025, signed through 2028. By his own standards it has been a down year — three goals in 19 league matches — but he now leads the line in Arnaud’s back-three system, flanked by Uzuni and Facundo Torres, in the 9-10-11 Austin’s attack literally lines up in.
Brad Stuver — #1, goalkeeper. Austin’s No. 1 since the inaugural 2021 season and still the defense’s organizer at 35, standing behind a back line that has conceded 56 league goals. The save totals are enormous because the workload is enormous; Stuver remains the reason several of those losses were not worse.
Ervin Torres — #38, central midfielder. The breakout story of a difficult season: an 18-year-old homegrown who was starring at MLS NEXT Pro level in the spring, broke into the first team after the World Cup break, and is now starting weekly — one goal and three assists in 24 matches, including a goal in the August 16 Texas derby against Dallas. In a season of expensive disappointments, the free homegrown is the future Curtin inherits first.
Star Spotlight
The night Austin nearly won a trophy. October 1, 2025. The U.S. Open Cup final at a sold-out Q2 Stadium, Nashville SC the visitors. Uzuni’s penalty in first-half stoppage time leveled the final and set the building shaking — but Nashville found a second and won 2–1. It remains the biggest night in club history, and the standard this squad is judged against. The 2026 rematch at Q2, on October 10, went the same way only worse: Nashville won 4–1. Some debts take longer to settle.
The Leagues Cup run. While the league season rotted, Austin went unbeaten through Leagues Cup Phase One in August 2026: 2–0 over Tijuana, 3–0 over Puebla, and a 1–1 draw with Mexican giants Club América won 6–5 on penalties — finishing with eight points, second among MLS clubs, with Uzuni scoring four times. The run ended in the quarter-final against Toluca, a 0–2 loss in Harrison with Austin down to nine men after red cards for Joseph Rosales and Ilie Sánchez. Proof the talent is real. Proof, so far, of nothing in MLS play.
Ervin Torres, the 18-year-old. Every hard season should produce one story like this. A homegrown midfielder playing MLS NEXT Pro in the spring became a first-team starter after the World Cup break — scoring his first Texas-derby goal against FC Dallas on August 16 and starting every big fall match since. Fans searching “ervin torres austin fc” in October are watching the first chapter of the Curtin era arrive early.
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More Verde attackers, same Heartbeat green.
This Season (2026): The Season It Fell Apart
The austin fc standings tell a brutal story: 14th in the Western Conference, 31 points from 30 matches (7 wins, 10 draws, 13 losses), 38 goals scored and 56 conceded. Only Sporting Kansas City sit below them in the West. On May 18, one match after a club-worst 5–0 loss at San Diego, a 2–1 home defeat to last-placed Sporting KC cost head coach Nico Estévez and sporting director Rodolfo Borrell their jobs together, with Austin 13th in the conference. Davy Arnaud took over on an interim basis, shifted to a back three with Vázquez flanked by Uzuni and Facundo Torres, and Jim Curtin was appointed on June 8 to lead the club from 2027 — with a new chief soccer officer, Khaled El-Ahmad, brought in from Minnesota United.
The World Cup break was supposed to be a second preseason; the results never came. Austin are winless in five — a 0–0 draw at FC Dallas, a wild 3–3 with San Diego, then losses to Nashville (1–4), LAFC (1–3) and Vancouver (1–2) — and eight points behind ninth-placed Colorado with four matches left. The playoff race is alive on paper only: it would take wins and a collapse above them. The Open Cup defense of their final run never started either, eliminated in their first tie by USL Championship side Louisville City FC. And the departures still sting: Owen Wolff, the 2025 league top scorer, was sold — the painful one — alongside Osman Bukari and Dani Pereira. What remains is pride, a sellout crowd, and four matches for players to show the incoming coach they belong in his plans.
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Mark Your Calendar
Saturday, October 24, 2026 — at Sporting Kansas City, Sporting Park (7:30 p.m. CT). A meeting of the West’s bottom two — somebody’s autumn gets a little lighter.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 — vs Real Salt Lake, Q2 Stadium. The penultimate home date of the season, under the lights, in front of the wall that never stops.
Saturday, October 31, 2026 — at LA Galaxy, Dignity Health Sports Park. A Halloween trip to Carson against the other fallen giant of the West.
Saturday, November 7, 2026 — vs Portland Timbers, Q2 Stadium. MLS Decision Day 2026, the regular-season finale — and Davy Arnaud’s final match in interim charge before the Jim Curtin era begins.
November 18 – December 18, 2026 — the MLS Cup Playoffs, if the miracle lands. Austin would enter through the Wild Card round on November 18 as a No. 8 or No. 9 seed; Round One runs November 20 – December 2, the conference semifinals are December 5–6, the finals December 11–12, and MLS Cup is Friday, December 18. Every match streams on Apple TV with MLS Season Pass.
Biggest Rivalries — The Wars
1. FC Dallas — the Texas Derby and Copa Tejas. The rivalry that decides the three-team Copa Tejas, and the one Austin fans feel most. The 2026 meetings went Dallas’s way: a 2–1 home defeat on August 16 (Ervin Torres scored for Austin; Petar Musa won it for Dallas), then a 0–0 draw in Frisco on September 19, Brad Stuver’s late saves earning the point. Dallas clinched the 2026 Copa Tejas with that draw — and remain unbeaten at home against Austin all-time in MLS regular-season play. That is a wrong the Verde intend to right.
2. Houston Dynamo FC — the other half of Copa Tejas. A split with two shutouts in 2026: a 2–0 win at Q2 on April 25 (Jayden Nelson after 13 minutes, Uzuni in first-half stoppage time), then a 3–0 defeat in Houston on July 25, Mateusz Bogusz scoring twice inside half an hour. History hook: Austin also beat Houston 3–1 at Q2 in the 2025 Open Cup Round of 16, on the road to the final.
3. Los Angeles FC. No trophy attaches to it, but LAFC have become Austin’s measuring stick and tormentor: they ended Austin’s best-ever season in the 2022 Western Conference Final and swept them out of the 2025 playoffs. The 2026 meeting, a 3–1 defeat at BMO Stadium on October 14, was the same story — the fixture Austin keep failing, in the building where their two best seasons ended. Every rebuild is measured against somebody. Austin’s somebody wears black and gold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who coaches Austin FC in 2026?
Davy Arnaud is the interim head coach for the rest of 2026 after Nico Estévez was fired on May 18, 2026. His permanent successor is already named: former Philadelphia Union coach Jim Curtin takes over after the 2026 season ends and leads Austin from 2027.
Have Austin FC ever won a trophy?
Not a major one yet. Austin’s best runs are the 2022 Western Conference Final, the Copa Tejas crown in 2022, and the 2025 U.S. Open Cup final, lost 2–1 at home to Nashville SC on October 1, 2025 — the closest the Verde have come to silverware.
Where do Austin FC play, and how do I get tickets?
Home matches are at Q2 Stadium in north Austin, capacity 20,738 — and every league match sells out, so tickets move fast through austinfc.com and the secondary market. Every match also streams on Apple TV via MLS Season Pass. The last home game of 2026 is Decision Day, Saturday, November 7, against the Portland Timbers.
Who is Austin FC’s best player right now?
Designated Player Facundo Torres, the Uruguayan No. 11 who leads the team with seven assists and runs the attack — with surprise top scorer Christian Ramírez (nine league goals) and Albania international Myrto Uzuni (No. 10, ten goals in all competitions) the other names to know.
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The Verde front line — Uzuni, Torres and Vázquez in the Heartbeat green.
Sources & official links: Austin FC official site · MLS official site · Austin FC tickets
Verde and black, loud since day one — Listos Verde, Austin.
