Tangled 1-1 with the Earthquakes, out on the road in San Jose, things were getting weird. Physicality was ramping up. The energy of the U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinal turned chaotic and, most importantly, Austin’s star man, Brandon Vazquez – of Superman-inspired goal celebrations and the tournament’s top scorer at the time – was on a stretcher with a knee injury that would end his night and his season.
“When you lose a player like Brandon, you need to get more out of every single person that you have, because you simply don’t replace a guy like that,” said Brad Stuver, Austin’s 34-year-old goalkeeper and, like Vazquez, a 2025 MLS All-Star. “Everyone needs to step up a little more.”
As humble a pro as you’ll ever meet, one always ready to hand the credit to his teammates, Stuver proceeded to put in what could easily be described as the best performance of his career, one labelled “simply amazing” by head coach Nico Estevez. “I don’t think too much about it, in those moments and in those kinds of games,” he said, in an interview with ussoccer.com. “You just try to think that there’s always going to be an extra action. How can I be ready for the next thing that happens?”
Ready, he was. Stuver made nine saves in 120 minutes of regular and extra-time (2-2, 2-4 PKs). Not just garden-variety stops, the kind commentators like to say goalkeepers should make. He made those, yes, but the unconventional ones too: Sliding blocks with his legs. Double follow-ups. Lunges to thwart arrows destined for his top corner.
If Austin FC end up winning the Open Cup Final they’ll host on Oct. 1, Stuver’s performance in the Quarterfinal will stand up as the turning point when ambition became reality.
“I guess I’m just kind of in it in those moments,” he said of the win-or-go-home game he capped with two more saves in the penalty shootout to send Austin FC to a first-ever Open Cup Semifinal. “I just try to stay at it for the entire game and give confidence to the guys in front of me – hopefully they know I’ve got their back no matter what.”
Stuver is the difference-maker in Austin green and black. Of the club’s two All-Stars, he’s the only one who played in the thrilling Open Cup Final-Four contest that came next, a last-gasp extra-time 2-1 win on the road in St. Paul against a motivated and high-flying Minnesota United FC. And it’s all quite a thing considering he arrived at the club in its inaugural year of 2021 with no fanfare and no realistic expectation of a starting role.
“I wasn’t expected to be a starter because I hadn’t ever played too many games before,” Stuver said with a smile about his seven years on the fringes. “I’d never been a concrete starter anywhere.”
For clarification, the number of MLS starts Stuver had amassed when he arrived in Austin, on the eve of his 30th birthday, was precisely nine. As a backup for the majority of his pro career, most of his chances came in the Open Cup. He earned 13 Cup starts spread across his time with Columbus Crew and NYCFC of MLS and out on loan at Division II sides Wilmington Hammerheads and the Dayton Dutch Lions. “I’ve been part of these games, the Open Cup energy, for a long time,” he said with a smile.
Excelling over four years at Cleveland State, near his Ohio hometown of Twinsburg, Stuver impressed at the 2013 MLS Combine. He was drafted by the Montreal Impact, but the club decided not to sign him. Instead, he dropped into the peculiar purgatory known as the MLS Goalkeeper Pool.
“It’s kind of a stepping stone and a way that you can get your foot in the door,” he said about his year filling in with squads around the league that were low on goalkeepers.
“I guess I’m just kind of in it in those moments,” he said of the win-or-go-home game he capped with two more saves in the penalty shootout to send Austin FC to a first-ever Open Cup Semifinal. “I just try to stay at it for the entire game and give confidence to the guys in front of me – hopefully they know I’ve got their back no matter what.”
Stuver is the difference-maker in Austin green and black. Of the club’s two All-Stars, he’s the only one still influencing what comes next in 2025. And it’s quite a thing considering he arrived at the club in its inaugural year of 2021 with no fanfare and no realistic expectation of a starting role.
“I wasn’t expected to be a starter because I hadn’t ever played too many games before,” Stuver said with a smile about his seven years on the fringes. “I’d never been a concrete starter anywhere.”
For clarification, the number of MLS starts Stuver had amassed when he arrived in Austin, on the eve of his 30th birthday, was precisely nine. As a back-up for the majority of his pro career, most of his chances came in the Open Cup. He earned 13 Cup starts spread across his time with Columbus Crew and NYCFC of MLS and out on loan at Division II sides Wilmington Hammerheads and the Dayton Dutch Lions. “I’ve been part of these games, the Open Cup energy, for a long time,” he said with a smile.
Excelling over four years at Cleveland State, near his Ohio hometown of Twinsburg, Stuver impressed at the 2013 MLS Combine. He was drafted by the Montreal Impact, but the club decided not to sign him. Instead, he dropped into the peculiar purgatory known as the MLS Goalkeeper Pool.
“It was strange, but it was also super beneficial because I got to train with five different clubs [New England Revolution, Seattle Sounders, Chivas USA, Real Salt Lake and the Crew]," he said. "The goal was to get my foot in a door and make as many good impressions as I could.”
“It was strange, but it was also super beneficial because I got to train with five different clubs [New England Revolution, Seattle Sounders, Chivas USA, Real Salt Lake and the Crew]. The goal was to get my foot in a door and make as many good impressions as I could.”
For someone with a gloomier disposition, it might have been a drag. For the upbeat Stuver it was an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of other MLS goalkeeping stars he held in high esteem – the likes of Tim Melia, Sporting Kansas City legend and two-time Open Cup Champion, and the most famous alumni of the Goalkeeper Pool, 2017 Open Cup Runner-up Luis Robles and Sounders hero Stefan Frei, twice an MLS Cup winner and one-time Open Cup Champion.
“I looked up to those kinds of guys – the ones who didn’t have your typical MLS story of being the young guy everyone is looking at,” he said.
Stuver was eventually signed in 2014 by the Columbus Crew, his homebase club during that Pool Year. It was there – and out on loan from there – that he got his first taste of the U.S. Open Cup. “We’d go to Richmond [Kickers] and Rochester [Rhinos] and places like that – and of course there was that FC Cincinnati game in 2017.”
The game in question was the first installment of the Hell is Real derby when, in May of 2017, the then Division II FC Cincinnati started what he calls a “magical run” in the Open Cup with a 1-0 win over Ohio rivals Columbus Crew. Djiby Fall’s winning header that day slipped past one Brad Stuver and into the back of the net at a raucous Nippert Stadium.
Arriving in Austin with a low profile, after a back-up role with New York City FC between 2018 and 2020, where he made seven appearances in the league and four more in the Open Cup, Stuver quickly grabbed hold of the starting position. The young club’s fans, with little in the way of traditional success to hold on to, adopted the mild-mannered keeper as their icon.
“You can’t dream of a better reception than what I got when I arrived here,” he said of the fans who delight in chanting Stuuuuuv from behind his goal. “The way the fans adopted me. The city. It’s one of those places where you’re made to feel at home. There's nothing like the heartbeat before the kick-off or the Verde smoke after a goal. It’s electric.”
From a player without a club to an enduring symbol of one, it’s been quite the road for Stuver. And you get the sense it’s only just beginning. Up next for the Austin club, after building momentum with the impressive Semifinal win on the road in Minnesota, is a chance to lift a first-ever piece of major silverware in club history.
The 2025 U.S. Open Cup Final (LIVE on Paramount+ and on air at CBS Sports Network on Oct. 1) will be hosted at Stuver’s home sweet home of Q2 Stadium – with the adoring fans shouting him on.
“You know that the South End is going to be rocking for the full 90 minutes, or however long it goes,” said Stuver ahead of the first Final in Austin FC’s short history. “Being able to host a Final...is amazing and I just know that the fans make that difficult environment for the opponent.”
“A chance to host a Final isn’t something that comes around every day,” added Stuver, fully immersed in the meaning of the moment.
Austin FC’s complete run to this Open Cup Final has had its share of topsy-turvy vibes. “That’s the kind of stuff that makes the Open Cup special,” Stuver said of the particular edge and energy of this country’s most-historic tournament. Austin came back from two goals down against Division II El Paso Locomotive before seeing off two-time Champions Houston Dynamo -- and then suffered the mayhem of their OT-and-penalty Quarterfinal night in San Jose.
It all culminated in a literal last-second winner from young CJ Fodrey in the Semifinal – the kind of moment that has fans and well-wishers in South Texas whispering about a Team of Destiny.
“You have to be willing to adapt when things happen in a game,” added the goalkeeper, who’s proven he can do just that in this run to the Open Cup Final as well as in a legitimate challenge for a place in MLS’s playoffs (the club is in 7th place in the West, just three points off third, at the time of publishing).
“It would be kind of a surreal moment, five years on from coming to Austin for the club’s first year, to be a part of the team that lifts a trophy,” he admitted, with a hosting brief in the Decider on the line in Minnesota. “I want to be a part of that.”
“I’ve been working for this for 13 years,” said Stuver, the Pool Goalkeeper-turned-All Star-turned-Title Contender. “I want to lift trophies. That’s something I haven’t done before and I’m always kind of focused on what’s next. This is a chance to make that next thing the lifting of a trophy.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of ussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.