Austin FC vs. San Diego FC: Keys to Sunday Night Soccer | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

The new kids in town, San Diego FC, take their first-ever trip to Texas this weekend, making their Lone Star State bows at Q2 Stadium for our Matchday 5 Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire clash at Austin FC (4 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+).

San Diego have figured things out quickly, or so it seems anyway, with two wins and two hard-fought draws in their four outings thus far. They’ve exhibited a level of solidity that is unusual in an expansion side.

The hosts are finally finding the same, albeit in their fifth year of existence. It’s not sexy, but it’s a necessary foundation for any kind of meaningful success in MLS.

Also necessary: goals. Austin are starting to be a little bit desperate for them.

Players in focus

Austin FC

San Diego FC

What’s at stake for Austin FC?

There will be no grumbles any time soon (I don’t think, anyway) about this team from a fanbase that really wants to see winning soccer, and are willing to take their time until they get to “attractive, winning soccer.” There seems to be an overall understanding that new head coach Nico Estévez has a lot of work to do to piece a largely new roster together and get it all flowing in the same direction.

That work has progressed rapidly on the defensive side of the ball, as the Verde & Black have conceded just twice in four games and have posted the best underlying numbers in the league.

It has been slower offensively, where they’ve managed to score just twice (both from set pieces) and are in the bottom third in the league as per the underlying metrics – despite having reportedly spent more than $30 million to fix the attack over the past two windows.

So yeah, there won’t be any grumbles yet. But there might be some whispers that Estévez brought FC Dallas’s attacking woes with him from his previous stop if they don’t generate an open-play goal sometime soon.

Ninety minutes at home in the national spotlight is a pretty great chance to show everyone that progress has been made.

Austin FC: Will their attack spark to life?

What’s at stake for San Diego FC?

The last time I was this impressed by an MLS expansion team was LAFC’s inaugural year, back in 2018. Yeah, I know that’ll upset some folks in St. Louis – CITY got out to a perfect 5W-0L-0D start back in 2023, and it was all pretty magical. But there were plenty of red flags with that team, from roster construction to underlying numbers to game model, that said it would fall apart. And by the two-thirds mark of that first season, it did.

It’s all pointing in the other direction for San Diego. They are unbeaten in four (2W-0L-2D), have conceded just twice, have won the xG battle every time out and, if anything, have been a little bit unlucky in front of goal. All while mostly playing without Chucky, their star signing.

One green flag after another, to be honest. The Niños are good, folks, and my bet is they'll get better throughout the season.

The job this week is simply to keep the vibes high, and the way to do that is to put the ball into the back of the net a couple of times.

How sustainable is San Diego FC's hot start?

On Wiebe’s radar

Austin FC: Soooooo, who plays center back?

Injuries and the international break are the ultimate MLS tax man, and Estévez is undergoing an early defensive audit in Matchday 5.

Oleksandr Svatok (Ukraine) and Leo Väisänen (Finland) are both away for massive international tilts. Svatok and Ukraine are attempting to gain promotion into UEFA Nations League A this window via a home-and-away series win against Belgium. Meanwhile, Finland’s 2026 World Cup qualifying journey begins against Malta and Lithuania.

That leaves Brendan Hines-Ike as the only healthy center back – opening-day starter Julio Cascante is recovering from a hamstring issue – and, in my view, only one obvious solution on the roster.

That’d be Ilie Sánchez, who played central defense in an emergency more than a time or two when he was in Kansas City. Which then begs the question: Would you rather Ilie defend space behind him (Cc: Anders Dreyer) or service in his own area?

No matter how Estévez tackles the problem, the tax man cometh.

San Diego FC: Welcome to the Onni Valakari show

With 1g/1a in 117 minutes, the Finland international has been an effective attacking sub for Mikey Varas in all four games and put up big numbers per FBRef: 0.31 xG + 0.65 xA per 90.

With Aníbal Godoy away with Panama for Concacaf Nations League games, it’s likely time to see Valakari from the jump. At 6-foot-2, he’s a threat on set pieces – see his Matchday 4 game-tying goal vs. the Crew – and puts himself in good spots to receive the ball in dangerous positions.

What San Diego need most from whoever replaces Godoy is progressive passing INTO the final third, mostly to put Dreyer in positions to change the game.

Tactical breakdown

Austin FC

We have a good idea of what they'll be defensively, as it’s clear Estévez made fixing the defense his No. 1 priority. Look at the way they stymied LAFC in LA last week:

I’ll admit some surprise that it’s actually a 4-4-2 – Vazquez has been playing up top with this winter’s other big signing, Myrto Uzuni (who will miss this game on international duty) – instead of some sort of 4-3-3, which is what Estévez preferred in Dallas.

But I think that speaks to the issues still present in the roster build: there’s no truly creative midfield hub who can carve open opposing defenses and create chances for the front line, thus it makes sense to sacrifice a bit of possession and a ton of field position for space to counter into. Vazquez, Uzuni and Bukari are all somewhere from “pretty fast” to “extremely freaking fast,” and so the open field should be Austin’s friend. In theory.

In practice, they haven’t even really made use of that. So far they’ve managed just two through-balls all year as per Opta, which is (as you’d expect) down near the bottom of the league. They hit a lot of long balls (fourth in the league) and complete a good amount of them (Vazquez has done a Benteke-esque job of contesting aerials), but the vast majority of those have been in midfield. As such, Austin are tied for just 19th in final third entries and haven't been efficient at turning those into chances when they make the trek upfield.

So yeah, very much a work in progress. My short take is they spent a lot of money on the front line without entirely thinking through their plans to get the ball to them in good spots, and it shows. But also, they’ve been so good defensively and on restarts that they’ve given themselves some breathing room anyway.

San Diego FC

Through four weeks they’ve played maybe the most compact soccer in the league, and have been committed to that no matter the game state. You can crack them open, but you have to be brave and precise:

That’s their plan when they don’t have the ball: compress the field and make you string together several special plays to get them into rotation. I’ve written before that they remind me of nothing so much as the great Real Salt Lake teams of 15 years back (we’ll count this as my second Beckerman reference of the column), and that became even more true in the second half of last weekend’s draw with the Columbus Crew when Mikey Varas switched the Niños out of their typical 4-3-3 into more of a 4-4-2 diamond with two strikers attacking the channels.

That type of formational flexibility breeds tactical flexibility. San Diego, more than anything, want to get on the ball a ton and control the game with it. They’re at or near the top of the league in possession, passes per possession, passes into and within the attacking third, field tilt and all the rest. Varas told us in preseason that this is how they’d play, and he’s been good to his word.

But when they’ve needed to pull another club out of the bag they’ve done so, both in terms of changing up their attacking shape and changing up their pressing structure (look for San Diego’s center forward, if they’re playing a 4-3-3, to sit on Austin’s d-mid, be it Ilie or Dani Pereira, and make it very difficult for him to conduct the game).

This one could feel very chess master-y. Force me to make a guess and I’d say that Austin’s low block will force one of San Diego’s fullbacks to play higher and be more aggressive pushing into attack than we’ve seen from them over the first month.

Projected lineups

I think it’ll be the 4-4-2 again but don’t be shocked if it’s really a 4-3-3 with Bukari and Jáder Obrian flanking Vazquez. Also, be aware that this will be a VERY makeshift backline. Wiebe's theory, which I have bought into, is Ilie will move to center back with Pereira coming back into the CM mix. Could be a chance for the kid to prove a point.

Not as hard-hit by absences as Austin, but there will be some work to do on that backline and central midfield. I'm still expecting the 4-3-3, but Varas has got that diamond in his pocket.

EDIT: And then we got some late-breaking news that starting No. 9 Marcus Ingvartsen will be out for a while. So this team's depth is really starting to be tested.