2025 Austin FC “Goal of the Year” Bracket - Quarterfinal Round
2nd Round Recap
You may have already heard on Episode 273 that the second round of voting has concluded and the short recap we gave. If not, here’s what went down as Austin FC fans continued to make their voices heard this offseason. All four “one-seeds” are still alive, along with the pair of “two-seeds” that survived the first round.
The most “dominant” goal in the second round voting process was out of the “Vibes Region”, where CJ Fodrey’s 120th minute winner against Minnesota United in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals continued to crush the competition with 90.9% of the vote after garnering 96.7% in the first round.
As mentioned, second round was more decisive than the first, with the closest vote tally coming in the “Home Region” courtesy of Owen Wolff’s 51st minute equalizer against FC Dallas. Wolff’s seventh seeded goal is the lone sub-three seed to make it to the quarterfinal round.
The Quarterfinal Round Ballot is open, Vote Now!
You can find the 2025 Bracket by clicking here. Each goal in the bracket is a clickable link, providing you with a highlight of the goal to help you vote to advance your favorite goal in each matchup. You can vote on the quarterfinal round matchups by clicking here. All four of the top seeds are still alive among the remaining eight goals, along with the Wolff seven seed. Like March Madness, the 2025 “Goal of the Year” bracket has produced some predictable results and served up some surprising upsets.
We hope you continue to enjoy this journey back through the season that was! Even though the result of the season wasn’t what any Austin FC fan wanted, there are certainly some moments in this bracket that will bring a smile to your face or a good memory to mind. Thank you for participating in our quarterfinal round voting this week. We’ll cover the results on our next episode and we hope to see you back here next week for the semifinal round!
View the 2025 “Goal of the Year” Bracket here.
Confusion about what we’re doing here? Read the following for more information.
It’s Bracket Time!
With the 2025 MLS regular season in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to bring back our annual tradition here in The North End. In each of the first three off-seasons that we have spent covering everyone’s favorite team, The North End Podcast has brought Verde fans a fun holiday season exercise, the Austin FC “Goal of the Year” bracket!
When the lights are turned off for the winter at Q2 Stadium, we spring into action, placing all of the goals scored by the Verde & Black from the previous season into a “March Madness” style bracket to determine which moment was the fan favorite.
In 2022, it was Moussa Djitte’s third goal from his franchise record setting hat-trick performance that took home the crown. In 2023, Sebastián Driussi’s opening night chip of St. Louis City SC goalkeeper Roman Bürki came out on top. Then last season, it was Guilherme Biro’s 67th minute goal against the San Jose Earthquakes knocking off Driussi’s winning goal later in that same game to take the title.
The voting process for the first two “Goal of the Year” brackets was fully conducted through our Twitter account. You can click these links to see the full brackets and results from both the 2022 season and the 2023 season. Last year, we wanted to make it easier for all Austin FC fans following our show to access this fun activity and help us crown the Austin FC “Goal of the Year” by moving the activity to our website. After some positive feedback and an increase in fan participation, we’re back with the same format this off-season! You can view last year’s bracket by clicking here.
How Does It Work?
If you’re a returning participant, you’ll notice some differences in this season’s bracket compared to some years past, which corresponds to the overall offensive success of Austin FC. In the magical 2022 season that ended with a run to the Western Conference Final, we had 64 goals included in the bracket, broken down into four regions of 16 goals. What a time that was… we had an entire region dedicated to only goals scored by Driussi!
With the team’s offensive output declining in each of the last three seasons, we’ve adjusted the format accordingly. The 2023 bracket had 48 goals in the competition, organized in four regions of 12. In all three brackets to date, we’ve had a “Home” region, with only goals scored at Q2 Stadium. We’ve also had an “Away” region comprised solely of goals scored away from central Texas. We replaced the “Driussi” and “Sentimiento” regions of 2022 with “Verde” and “Vibes” in the 2023 bracket. Those regions remain the same in the 2025 bracket.
While the team managed 50 goals across all competitions this season, the 2025 “Goal of the Year” bracket will once again include just 32 goals in four regions of eight. We did not include any of Austin’s five goals that came from the penalty spot. We also took the liberty to decide internally which of the 13 goals from open play did not make the cut for the bracket.
Because of the larger amount of goals we excluded compared to year’s past, we also did away with some of our previous seeding methodology in 2025. Last season, every game winning goal (any goal that put Austin FC in the lead for the remainder of a match) could not be seeded lower than a fourth spot in any region and any goal scored in a “Copa Tejas” matchup could not be lower than a sixth seed in any region. We expect to bring those seeding rules back in the future once Austin FC records a more successful season offensively.
Over the course of five weeks, we will vote to crown our 2025 Austin FC “Goal of the Year”. This week, we’ll move into the semifinal round with just eight goals remaining!
