Austin FC will be without its main offensive weapon when it hosts the New England Revolution for the first time ever on Saturday night in an interconference match between teams craving points to move up in the standings.

Austin (7-8-5, 26 points) is in ninth place in the Western Conference, while New England is 11th in the East.

Austin heads home after a 2-2 result against San Jose in a US Open Cup quarterfinal match on Tuesday. Austin won on penalty kicks, 4-2, to advance in the tournament but lost leading scorer Brandon Vazquez to a season-ending knee injury.

Vazquez, who leads the Verde’s anemic offense with nine goals across all competitions this season, tore his right ACL in the 69th minute against San Jose.

Austin has an MLS-low 15 goals in 20 league matches this season; Vazquez has five of them. Only defender Guilherme Biro, who has scored twice, has multiple goals for the Verde in MLS play in 2025.

“You never want to see any of your players having those situations, but it’s part of the job and injuries happen,” Austin coach Nico Estevez said about Vazquez. “On the other side, when you (build) a roster, you always have to plan that something bad can happen.”

Austin has produced 16 of its 26 points in its 10 home matches this year.

Meanwhile, New England (6-8-6, 24 points) is winless in its past five matches (0-4-1), a streak that includes a 2-1 loss at home to Inter Miami on Wednesday in the Revolution’s most recent outing.

New England hasn’t won since May 31 at CF Montreal. Carles Gil’s eight goals in league play pace the team.

“We have a very confident team even after the disappointment of losing to Miami,” Revolution coach Caleb Porter said. “When you don’t win against a very good team but you have the better of it, the confidence remains. We’ve got a team now that (can) go and beat anybody. We are obviously a bit under (the playoff line) now, so we need to go and get these three points in Austin.”

–Field Level Media