There’s a time-honored ritual at many training grounds around the soccer world, one outsiders don’t usually get to witness – not unless club social-media accounts give us a peek into that inner sanctum, at least.
Sometimes called ‘the gauntlet,’ it’s how birthdays are celebrated or the injured are welcomed back to the squad after long periods away while recuperating. Players form two rows, then happily slap their teammates about the head and shoulders as they trot down the line of honor. It tends to be both playful and a bit painful, a physical manifestation of the banter and bonding of a typical locker room.
Those smacks represented something profoundly sweet for Brandon Vazquez when the doctors cleared him to rejoin his Austin FC comrades earlier this spring – a major milestone on the long, agonizing road back from the torn ACL (knee) that left him sprawled in agony on the pitch during a US Open Cup match at San Jose’s PayPal Park last July.
Vazquez passed another, even bigger one at Q2 Stadium last Sunday, entering ATX’s 2-0 home win over St. Louis CITY SC to a loud ovation nearly 300 days after that life-changing injury.
“I've been visualizing this moment for a long time,” Vazquez told reporters postgame, “just grinding through every day, pretty much, to get here.
“Being able to be back with the team, being able to step back onto the field and hearing the stadium go crazy, it was an amazing feeling.”
Grueling recovery
ACL: It’s one of the most dreaded acronyms in sports, particularly soccer, where the surgical reconstruction and harrowing nine-to-12-month rehabilitation process has become all too familiar. In the women’s game, it’s grown so common as to spawn the term ‘ACL club,’ with former NWSL player Jordan Angeli launching a support group with the same name to help those struggling through the psychological aspects of recovery.
Even for Vazquez, whose career has led him on a winding journey from his childhood in Chula Vista, California to Club Tijuana, on to Atlanta United, then FC Cincinnati and Mexican giants CF Monterrey before landing him in central Texas as a much-anticipated Designated Player last year, it was an unprecedented undertaking.
“It's definitely the hardest one that I've had to deal with,” the Mexican-American striker, nicknamed ‘Superman,’ told MLSsoccer.com during Austin’s preseason camp at the Coachella Valley Invitational.
“It's been a really long injury mentally, has been very, really challenging. But I try to be an optimist and try to take the best out of every chapter and every challenge that I have in life. So, it's been really hard. But I’ve got to keep growing and keep improving myself.”
Mental grind
The slow, painful, methodical rebuilding of strength and flexibility is a quietly torturous, deeply personal gauntlet unto itself. Vazquez worked out on his own with physical therapist Mauricio Elizondo and the rest of the club’s medical staff, day after day, for months on end at St. David’s Performance Center, Austin’s training facility. He’d sometimes see his team out on the field but was unable to join in, only occasionally crossing paths with teammates, given words of advice and encouragement from those who’d lived similar experiences.
“There were a lot of days where I finished rehab,” Vazquez told AustinFC.com, “and cried on my way home.”
His wife Jessie and their young son Luca – “the light of our lives,” in Brandon’s words – were both solace and motivation, even if he admits to moments of frustration when his body limited his capacity to play with his kid and contribute around the house like he wanted.
“The mental aspect, definitely,” Vazquez told Apple TV's Antonella González in Spanish before Sunday's match when asked about the most difficult aspect of his recovery. “There were some very difficult days. So the consistency of staying positive, of showing up with the discipline to push myself every single day and be the best version of myself, that was the hardest part.
"My family, my wife and son, having them by my side has been the very best thing for me; they take my mind off the pain and everything else.”
Attacking boost
Spare a thought for Austin head coach Nico Estévez, who has the unenviable task of keeping Vazquez on the “cautious” fitness plan carefully laid out by the club’s performance staff. His involvement on Sunday was restricted to 15 minutes, a number the big striker will surely be eager to push in the coming weeks.
The Verde & Black visit in-form Minnesota United FC in the first half of a Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental doubleheader this weekend (7 pm ET | Apple TV), travel to San Diego FC at midweek before facing Sporting Kansas City, then face St. Louis again in their final match before the 2026 FIFA World Cup break.
For a goal-shy side who struggled along for nearly two months without a victory before reeling off back-to-back wins these past two matchdays, there’s finally real reason for optimism as Vazquez returns, along with key midfielders Owen Wolff and Dani Pereira.
“I think we all know that there are things we still need to work on, but the team looks better and better with every match,” Vazquez told González. “The quality of the players we have is incredible, so I believe that once the pieces fall into place, we’ll undoubtedly be flying.”
International ambitions
A US international with four goals in 11 caps and the same World Cup dreams as any other player on earth, Vazquez could not help but calculate the calendar arithmetic in the immediate aftermath of his torn ligament. Would his recuperation enable him to regain health before this summer’s big event on home soil?
Given the USMNT’s crowded depth chart at the No. 9 spot, it would take an improbable series of events for him to vault back into the reckoning for a place on Mauricio Pochettino’s roster for the tournament – though it won’t stop him from doing everything in his power to keep hope alive.
“Of course, it's on the back of my mind,” he said in February. “A lot of stuff about that is out of my control, and the only thing that's in my control is my attitude, my work ethic and my motivation, discipline. So I'm just going to focus on doing that, and then all the rest will come.
“Realistically, I’ve got to start banging in goals right away to be considered. So hopefully that's the case. But I'm just going to do what I can to be the best version of myself.”
