Months after locking in Josh Wolff as head coach, Austin FC is reportedly on the verge of naming one of MLS’ best sporting directors to the same role.
The Athletic reported on Wednesday that Anthony Precourt’s Austin FC has hired Claudio Reyna from New York City FC to be the expansion club’s new sporting director. It’s the second expansion club that Reyna is working for since he joined NYCFC in 2013 as its first director of soccer operations.
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If true, it’s a shrewd move by Precourt to bring in a man who knows MLS like the back of his thumb, and to pair him with a former teammate from the U.S. Men’s National Team. Wolff’s spent almost his entire career in professional soccer in MLS too, so the club now has two influential individuals who are knowledgable about the league and it’s various roster mechanisms.
Having our Sporting Director and our Coach employed a year in advance of our inaugural season demonstrates our commitment to fielding a highly competitive team right away. #AustinFC
— Anthony Precourt (@APrecourt) November 20, 2019
Austin FC doesn’t enter MLS until 2021, so locking in Reyna now gives him more than a year of runway towards building an MLS-ready roster. Precourt has surely seen the best-case scenario - Seattle, Los Angeles FC, Atlanta United - where a team loaded with top-heavy talent and good role players can make a deep playoff run in its expansion season. But he’s likely also seen the worst-case scenarios - look at Minnesota United in the past and FC Cincinnati this year.
Bringing in Reyna certainly makes it more likely that Austin FC’s future will lie in the former category.
