It’s no surprise that Austin FC’s first appearance in a major final – and the club’s emergence as a contender generally – coincides with the arrival of Ilie Sanchez.
He’s elegance personified in the deep-lying midfield role. Off the field, Sanchez is soft-spoken and modest, eager to touch on concepts larger than the individual. When he speaks of “journeys” how the current iteration of Austin FC is “developing organically” and "experiencing an evolution,” it’s with a gravitas few in Major League Soccer can match.
When Austin FC’s captain speaks, people listen.
“We haven’t done anything yet,” he told ussoccer.com, words tinted around the edges with his native Catalan and oozing, always, a kind of rare wisdom. “We will know more in a few weeks what we’ve done. We know we have a Final at home, which is an incredible experience to have – for the fans, the owners, for the staff and everyone who has built this club from scratch.”
Sanchez is a soccer mystic. He’s interested in the nuts and bolts of the game, yes, but also in the idea of some greater design. It’s no surprise. At La Masia, the loom where FC Barcelona’s young talent is woven and where Austin FC’s 34-year-old midfielder studied among the masters, you learn big lessons early.
“You learn that the people who do the work of the club – trainers to the staff around the stadium, everyone, how much they all matter,” said Sanchez, in his first year as captain of the five-year-old MLS club Austin FC – decades removed from his early days at Barcelona’s famed youth academy. “A lot was familiar to me already because Barcelona was my home, and I grew up learning lessons about the club.
“Barça was part of my identity and my culture,” he said in an almost-reverent hush about the club where he learned his craft from the age of seven to nine, before returning to play for Barcelona B between 2009 and 2014. “It’s part of who I am.”
Ilie was born in Barcelona, the capital of Spain’s Catalonia region, to a family steeped in the club’s traditions. His parents were club members. His grandfather was the academy director of La Masia. Ilie’s blood was tinted blaugrana from his time in the womb. And, as a wide-eyed local, he was surrounded by academy mates from all over the world. They lived their lives at La Masia’s stone farmhouse, behind its centuries-old wooden doors, learning the lessons passed on like a magic scroll from the times of László Kubala in the 1960s to Johan Cruyff, up to the glory days of Pep Guardiola and Lamine Yamal today.
It’s hard, as Americans, to understand the value of Barcelona FC to the Catalan people of Spain. More than a Club is more than a slogan. It’s a measure of “values and manners, the product of specific education on and off the field,” according to Sanchez. He’ll not brag about the many times he was called into Guardiola’s training sessions, or having played, as a young apprentice, on those training pitches with all-time game-changers like Neymar, Andres Iniesta and Xavi, Carles Puyol and, yes, Messi too.
Sanchez takes his time to make sure he gets his point across properly. He has a near-perfect command of English, his third language behind Spanish and Catalan. Each syllable is pronounced with care.
It’s that same care that he takes with the ball on the pitch. He brought the lessons learned at La Masia thousands of miles and an ocean west, first to the American heartland and Sporting Kansas City, before landing at LAFC as the metronome deep-lying midfielder in that club’s ambitious success machine.
He won the U.S. Open Cup at both clubs. Now, in his first year with Austin FC, a team founded in 2020 and facing a first-ever chance at silverware in the U.S. Open Cup Final on Oct. 1 against fellow first-time hopefuls Nashville SC (LIVE on Paramount+ and on air at CBS Sports Network) he has a chance for a rare hat-trick.
“It was a very special moment,” Ilie said, thinking back to winning the 2017 Open Cup eight months after arriving in Kansas City in 2017. The move Stateside came after post-Barcelona stops at 1860 Munich and back on loan in Spain with second-division Elche. “A perfect way to start my life in the United States, lifting a trophy.”
It was a “special night” according to Sanchez who, seven years later, lifted the oldest prize in American soccer again as captain of defending Champions LAFC. Once more, it came in a packed house and in front of the home fans – steps away from the dream factories of Hollywood.
In Kansas City, he was the new man in a club where the Open Cup mattered, and with three Open Cups and two MLS titles already in the cabinet. In LA, where he won a Supporter’s Shield and an MLS title in 2022, he was at the epicenter of huge ambitions at a club oozing celebrity. Now comes his biggest Open Cup challenge. It’s with an Austin FC side who’ve yet to win anything – the trophy room at their Q2 Stadium yawning and eager, ready to receive.
Here in Texas, Sanchez is helping cook a new stew from scratch. Nothing is written. No signposts to follow or footsteps to follow in.
“You can’t just come to a new club and try to change everything right away,” he said, after being called “among the best defensive midfielders” in the league by sporting director Rodolfo Borrell upon his arrival. “You have to show you’re willing to suffer. How everyone that they can trust you and then you can evolve, together, as a team. You can come to understand that, as a team, you can have more of the ball. You can keep it and create chances.”
Sanchez is describing the trajectory of Austin FC’s 2025 season – in league and Open Cup play. At the start of the year, under coach and fellow Spaniard Nico Estevez, no one was pointing to the Texas club as challengers for anything on any front. Here and now, even with the loss of All-Star striker Brandon Vazquez to a serious knee injury, they’ve earned a place in the U.S. Open Cup Final and are climbing the MLS Western Conference standings.
“It’s the biggest challenge of our season, but also the biggest opportunity,” said Sanchez, guiding the club behind the scenes and in the heart of midfield. “We will know in a few weeks the kind of team we are. It’s too early to say now. We have to prepare, on and off the field, in the hardest way.”
It’s not lost on him that the role of host, which Austin will play on Oct. 1 against Nashville SC, is a two-sided sabre. And while he’s never tasted defeat in an Open Cup Final, he knows the pitfalls well. “You’re the team that is supposed to win the Final,” he admitted. “Of course, if you win, it’s fantastic. And if you don’t, well, it’s double the pain.”
Sanchez knows what awaits if this Texas club gets it right – and if the breaks go their way. “The trophy is there,” he said, knowing the weight and the feel of it twice before. “The ultimate goal – the cherry on the cake – that’s what we play for. It’s what we train for and it's what we have in mind every single day.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of usopencup.com. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.