We bring you this month’s Austin FC happenings including important news, wild speculation, and the hottest links on the Interwebs.
July 2020
Rodney Redes is player numero uno for Austin FC. On a lazy Sunday, CEO Anthony Precourt teased a “roster construction” followed by a whirlwind club press conference the next morning. Redes is a young forward out of South America that fits Coach Wolff’s mold as a versatile, hungry, hard-working player with a big upside. Check out highlights from that day as well as Rodney’s full soccer bio.
Austin FC hires a Texan in assistant coach Davy Arnaud. Coach Wolff only had to reach into his rolodex to find his right hand man. A former teammate of Wolff’s, Arnaud was mostly recently an assistant at Houston Dynamo. From the Golden Triangle in SE Texas, Davy played college soccer at West Texas A&M.
Beer Hall and expanded merch store news floors fans. A surprise stadium update unveiled new plans to forego office space in favor of a fan-friendly 18-tap, 20-TV airy-conditioned beer hall open to ALL ticket holders. Also in the North End building will be a two-level 5,000 sq. ft. merch store to tempt patrons with a wonderland of Verde gear.
General season tickets now for sale. Deposit holders for general seats are in the thick of selecting their season tickets (priced between $627-$912) in SeatGeek. A new seat map also revealed mesh seating across the entire lower East side. We have the scoop on pricing, a breakdown of seat locations, and more to get you prepped to select seats.
MLS expansion timeline update nearly gives us a heart attack. In an astonishing announcement by the league on July 17, three of the four expansion teams had their inaugural season pushed back a year. Thankfully, Austin FC still has the green light to play in 2021; fellow expansion club Charlotte wasn’t so lucky.
July 28 Capital City Soccer Show pod includes special guest Jonathan Emmett, THE design director of Austin FC stadium. Hosts Landon Cotham and Jeremiah Bentley have a jam-packed episode deep-diving in stadium design, as well as covering Rodney Redes scouting, MLS expansion delays, transfer rumors and more. Please please please subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite podcast player.
Coming Up
A Sponsor for Austin FC Stadium is expected to be named in 2020. Who will the sponsor be? That’s the multi-million dollar question. We made our guesses of local and regional companies that could buy the naming rights. (Before you ask, Dell isn’t in our list because they sponsor Dell Diamond down the street.) Looking at current MLS stadium deals, financial and automotive companies dominate, so there’s that…
DP Signing rumors abound for Austin FC as we approach the August MLS player transfer window. Unless you’ve been under a rock, you know that Austin FC target Javier “Chicharito” Hernández signed with LA Galaxy. Now the question is: can Austin FC land a headline-making DP with experience, name recognition, and the playing style the club wants? Coach Wolff had been scouting heavily in South America, but with COVID-19 he’s scouting virtually these days.
From MLS media day.. Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff is building out targets ahead of their 2021 MLS debut:
“I was in Colombia for the U-23 CONMEBOL tournament, I’ll be part of watching the Concacaf (Olympic) qualifying as well. Looking for young players, international players.”
— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) February 27, 2020
MLS Expansion Draft is coming up for the club. If the expansion draft goes down like last year, then Austin FC and Charlotte can each add a max of five players for their inaugural season. A few MLS clubs will be exempt from naming players for the expansion draft, but most others can only protect 12 players on their roster (leaving the others open to being snatched up in the draft). In 2019 the draft was held in mid-November.
Game Jersey Unveiling One of two official game jerseys will be released in late 2020—just in time for the holidays. We already know YETI will have its name on the front. Our biggest question rn—what color will the home jersey be? Given that the adidas training jersey is green it seems unlikely that this color will be an option. And a black home jersey would bake players in the searing ATX sun. Perhaps the jersey will be white with green accents…what do you think?
HOT 
LINKS
YETI releases silver 10 oz. Austin FC tumbler
360-degree stadium drone video shows if your seats will be in the sun at 7pm