Aren’t we all glad that’s over?
Six goals and four assists across 3,176 underwhelming, frustrating, confounding minutes were all Emiliano Rigoni produced for Austin FC. As a Designated Player (DP) earning north of $2 million a season, it goes without saying: that isn’t good enough.
Claudio Reyna’s tenure as Austin FC’s sporting director was riddled with head-scratching decisions, and the head-scratchiest of them all may have been a clause in Rigoni’s contract that auto-triggered a contract renewal for 2025 if he made twelve appearances in 2024. Rigoni appeared eleven times this season before being placed on waivers. New Austin FC sporting director Rodolfo Borrell doesn’t look the type to suffer fools, and he didn’t suffer his predecessor’s foolishness.
Enter Osman Bukari: Austin FC’s new DP winger and Rigoni’s replacement from Serbia’s FK Crvena zvezda – more commonly known in this part of the world as Red Star Belgrade. He doesn’t exactly have big shoes to fill, but that doesn’t mean Austin FC don’t need him to deliver significant production.
So, what can Austin FC fans expect from Bukari when he arrives after Major League Soccer’s (MLS’s) secondary transfer window opens on July 18th?
Those still weary of Rigoni will quickly find reassurance from a glance at the 25-year-old Bukari’s stats. Looking at his two Red Star league campaigns, Bukari combined for 15 goals and assists in 2022/23 (twelve goals and three assists) and 13 goals and assists in 2023/24 (seven goals and six assists). Rigoni’s most productive season was his 2016/17 campaign with Argentina’s Independiente where he combined for 13 goals and assists (eleven goals and two assists); he’s never come close to matching that level of production since – Austin FC fans will know he certainly didn’t for the Verde and Black.
Bukari’s raw goal and assist numbers suggest Austin FC can expect a baseline production greater than anything they could have hoped for from Rigoni. It must be noted, however, that the Serbian SuperLiga…isn’t very good. According to Opta’s ranking of the world’s men’s club soccer teams, Red Star are currently far and away the best team in Serbia and still only rank as the 109th-best team on the planet. The next highest-ranked Serbian team, Red Star’s arch-rivals Partizan Belgrade, are ranked 450th.
We shouldn’t completely dismiss Bukari’s accomplishments at Red Star due to the relatively low quality of Serbian club soccer, but we should take his SuperLiga exploits with a pinch of salt. More useful to projecting how Bukari will fare in MLS were his matches in the 2023/24 UEFA Champions League.
Red Star were in a group that featured mighty Manchester City, the world’s foremost energy-drink soccer purveyors RB Leipzig, and the humorously named Young Boys from Switzerland. It was a tough draw, and Red Star unsurprisingly finished last, earning just a single point from their six group-stage matches. Still, Bukari was impressive. The Ghanaian international registered two goals and two assists during Red Star’s brief Champions League campaign.
FBref.com (all stats per fbref.com unless otherwise noted) compares Bukari’s 486 Champions League minutes – note: that is a preciously small sample size – to other forwards in Europe’s Big Five leagues (England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, and France’s Ligue 1).
Because the sample size is so small we shouldn’t get too excited by all the green popping up on Bukari’s FBref chart, but we can use the chart to gain insight into the type of player Bukari is and how that profile might fit into Austin FC’s current squad.
One thing that immediately jumps out is Bukari ranking in the 97th percentile for successful take-ons, averaging 2.22 per 90 minutes. Watching Bukari’s performances in last season’s Champions League, it’s clear: when he receives the ball near a defender, he’ll try to beat that defender by dribbling past him. Bukari receiving a pass prompts you to inch forward in your chair. He’s going to try something; something’s going to happen.
Here’s Bukari finding his way onto the end of a hopeful long ball played forward in the Champions League in Red Star’s home fixture against Young Boys.
Bukari times his run superbly to remain onside. He’s an offsides trap’s worst nightmare and likes to use his pace to run in behind defenders whenever possible.
Once comfortably on the ball, Bukari slows, drawing the Young Boys’ defender closer to him. He knows he has the skill to win a one-on-one confrontation, so why not welcome the challenge?
The defender is sufficiently lulled by some fancy footwork from Bukari before the Ghanaian gently pushes the ball forward with his right foot, scampers forward to reach it before the defender can, and then lashes a cross to his Red Star teammate, Cherif Ndiaye, to wallop home for the match’s opening goal.
A tedious aspect of Austin FC’s play under head coach Josh Wolff, since the team debuted in 2021, has been their exasperating tendency to move the ball around opposing defenses instead of playing it through them. Contributing to this has been the team lacking an attacking player capable of beating defenders off the dribble.
At present, none of the players on Austin FC’s roster who have played significant minutes on the wing are particularly adept at dribbling past defenders – and Rigoni wasn’t good at it either when he was wearing Verde and Black. Jader Obrian, Owen Wolff, and Ethan Finlay are all sub-25th percentile wingers at completing successful take-ons. CJ Fodrey hasn’t played enough minutes for fbref.com to compare him to other MLS wingers and wingers in leagues comparable to MLS.
Are you tired of the dreaded horseshoe shape Austin FC default to playing in when facing a stubborn low-block defense? Bukari should help with that. For an attack that often looks too passive in possession, Bukari’s energy and directness will prove a welcome addition.
It’s no secret that Austin FC have struggled to create shots in 2024 – the Verde and Black are taking just 8.53 shots per 90 minutes, which ranks dead last in MLS. Though Bukari’s limited Champions League minutes don’t point to him being a high-volume shooter (it’s worth noting, however, that Red Star only averaged 41% possession in Champions League play – you can’t shoot if your team doesn’t have the ball), he did manage to create a healthy amount of shots for his teammates. Bukari ranks in the 94th percentile for shot-creating actions. In Red Star’s two matches against Young Boys (the team in the group closest to Red Star in quality), Bukari created 14 shots.
If there’s anything about Bukari’s game that should give Austin FC fans pause, it’s his first touch. The ball can squirm away from him when he receives a pass. For a team like Austin FC that typically likes to prioritize possession – and can have all kinds of problems stopping counterattacks when possession is lost – this could present a problem. Bukari miss controlled the ball an average of 3.70 times and was dispossessed 2.41 times per 90 minutes in Red Star’s Champions League matches. Both figures put Bukari in the bottom 15th percentile for each stat.
There’s also the question of where Bukari will actually play for Austin FC. For Red Star, he’s most commonly featured on the right wing – the position Jader Obrian has made his home for most of this season (Obrian’s five non-penalty goals lead Austin FC). Obrian has played some on the left and after doing so against Los Angeles FC recently Wolff suggested he would be fine playing there full-time once Bukari arrives. And while it makes sense to ensure your flashy new DP signing plays in the position he’s most used to playing in, there’s reason to think Bukari could fit in just fine playing on the left side of Austin FC’s attack.
A right-footed player, Bukari’s statistical profile in the 2023/24 Champions League skewed more toward chance creator than chance finisher (he’s in the 99th percentile for expected goals assisted and in the 1st percentile for non-penalty expected goals). However, even when playing on the right, Bukari likes to drift centrally. His left foot isn’t bad and he’s comfortable cutting inside on it. It isn’t difficult to envision him lining up on the left, sliding passes to Sebastian Driussi and Diego Rubio with his relatively weaker left foot, but also cutting inside on his stronger right foot and being more of a goal threat himself.
And in case anyone’s forgotten: Austin FC’s strikers haven’t exactly been lighting up the scoreboard in 2024. Bukari did sometimes feature in a more central role for Red Star and against the toughest opposition imaginable, he had success. In the Serbian side’s away match to Manchester City, Bukari featured on the right of a front two. Unsurprisingly, against the juggernaut that is Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, Red Star sat deep and looked to hit their superior opponents on the counter. Bukari was essential to their strategy.
Exceptionally comfortable on the shoulder of the last defender, Bukari was Red Star’s pacy outlet for passes hit behind Manchester City’s high defensive line. As the match was nearing halftime, Red Star midfielder Mirko Ivanic collected the ball after a bit of midfield head tennis.
He spots Bukari in the process of making a run that turns City center-back Ruben Dias into an awkward-looking statue. Remember: that’s Premier League-winning, Portuguese international center-back Ruben Dias that Bukari turns into an awkward statue.
One-on-one against City goalkeeper Ederson, Bukari doesn’t flub his lines and hammers the ball into the back of the net.
It’s tempting to daydream about Bukari solving Austin FC’s long-running problems at striker – even temporarily until a more permanent solution is found. But what Bukari can offer at the striker position (a speed-burning option to run in behind defenders) isn’t exactly what Wolff looks for in a number nine. Wolff has tended to prefer a center forward able to drop off the forward line and receive passes in between the opposition’s defense and midfield. If Rubio scored goals with greater regularity, his false nine-ish interpretation of the position would likely be Wolff’s ideal version of an Austin FC striker. Because of this, Bukari would likely only be a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency striker option.
Wherever he lines up, Bukari possesses skills that Austin FC have been sorely lacking. The sight of an Austin FC attacker slicing inside and putting a defender on his backside with a deft dribble would be more than welcome to the Q2 Stadium faithful. Boring, ponderous, dull – these are all words people have used to describe Austin FC in possession; they aren’t words anyone would use to describe Bukari.
