Level Set 19, Nashville SC: The Responsible Younger Sibling

It's Shaun Cassidy, right?

What follows is a brief history of Nashville SC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

Thumbnail History
Nashville SC joined in the COVID season (2020), along with Inter Miami CF, but fate has made them the plain sister/unathletic brother to MLS's glamour boys. And they built their inaugural roster as if they'd had their fortunes told by an insurance agent. It started with anchoring the backline with Walker Zimmerman and the midfield with forever-MLS vet, Dax McCarty; the front-office honchos filled out those two lines with still more familiar, imposing figures – e.g., Dave Romney and Daniel Lovitz in defense and Anibal Godoy in midfield. When it came to the offense, Nashville spent both big and wisely on one player – Hany Mukhtar, a future (and deserved) league MVP (2022) – but spent a couple seasons looking to squeeze more production than other teams got out of MLS journeymen like C. J. Sapong, Teal Bunbury, or even Alex Muyl and Fafa Picault. That’s not to say they haven’t tried to level up with bolder signings – e.g., I thought they’d landed a secondary scorer with winger Randall Leal, alas – but pinching pennies on the attacking side may have been Nashville’s first tradition. Have they moved on since? One could make a case for Sam Surridge as a first step – they (reportedly) paid $6.5 million – but he also came over after a shaky season in the English Championship. (And who can see what the future holds?) If Nashville has demonstrated anything, it’s how far a good defense goes toward getting reliable results and/or into the playoffs. Apart from a slip in 2024, Nashville has qualified for the playoffs every season since joining MLS, if sometimes only as a wild card, which, again, doesn’t count around here*…also, yes, wait for it. Consistency ain’t so bad, of course, and a good defense is great, but a team has to have a little something on the other end to win tournaments – and one player can’t shoulder the entire attack. Call it illustration, call it a quirky bit of trivia, Nashville didn’t even make the MLS Cup quarterfinals in Mukhtar’s 2022 super-season.

Nashville SC Scouting Report: Cincy's Third First Test of 2025

Walker Zimmerman, at pre-game meeting.

Over the weeks after it went up, Nashville SC seems to have made making me eat the somewhat dismissive Scouting Report I posted ahead of their Week 3 game against my Portland Timbers. They whooped the Timbers’ asses, of course, but some of the positives I flagged in my match report have come good. So, yeah, not totally useless. Let’s get into it…

Nashville SC
3-1-1, 10 pts., 8 gf, 3 ga (+5); home 2-0-1, away 1-1-0
Last Results: DLWWW
Strength/Location of Schedule
v NE (0-0 D); @ RBNY (0-2 L); v POR (2-0 W); @ PHI (3-1 W); v MTL (3-0 W)

Notes from the Field
In my defense, between their 2024 season and their first two games of 2025, Nashville didn’t give much reason to believe in them. Moreover, I don’t think anyone would have any reason to talk about them, never mind talk them up, if it weren’t for their cool as you like Week 4 win over the then-unbeaten Philadelphia Union. Three straight wins never looks bad, obviously, but beating Montreal doesn’t impresses anyone (their “loose slots” vibe sent Laurent Courtois to the unemployment line) and trust me when I say Portland is going through some shit - or was it the time (c'mon, lemme have it). Watching far too much of that Montreal game didn’t give me much you haven’t heard before – e.g., losing Walker Zimmerman in the area is bad, Nashville’s a strong defensive team, etc. – but the main takeaway there was Sam Surridge continuing a strong run of minutes that started with wreaking havoc against the Union. If Nashville can get the assist he teed up against Montreal and the goal he scored at Philly once even one-third as often, they’ll be better; Surridge becoming a reliable foil for Hany Mukhtar and Ahmed Qasem could take them all the way to competitive. The only other thing that jumped out over the 35+ minutes of that first half at Philly was how well Nashville handled one of MLS's better presses. They looked comfortable on the ball, both individually and as a team, and even pushed back after going up. The defense looked strong in both games (and versus Portland), but Zimmerman looking whole and imposing at the back tasks FC Cincinnati with battling the soccer equivalent of an ogre.

Nashville SC Scouting Report: Folks, I Have a Feeling. A Feeling.

L to R: Muyl, Mukhtar, Surridge?

Think I found a vehicle for smuggling Western-Conference-wide chatter into a post – e.g., inside the upholstery on the seats, also, at the end of this post. First up, the Nashville SC Scouting Report.

Don’t worry. I’ll keep it brief. A good spy knows to talk about only what he observed directly. Oh, in the list of prior results below, W = Win, L = Loss, D = draw. I’m guessing you know that, but some guy last year made a joke about it and I never recovered.

Nashville SC
0-1-1, 1 pt., 0 gf, 2 ga (-2); home 0-0-1, away 0-1-0
Last Results: DL
Strength/Location of Schedule
v NE (0-0 D); @ RBNY (0-2 L)

About what you’d expect, though the home draw versus the New England Revolution had to sting a bit. I watched more of that one than I watched of last weekend’s road loss at Red Bull New York (~35 minutes) – and I watched more of that one than I should have (~30).

Big picture, Nashville’s a mediocre team with new head coach, B. J. Callaghan. Their broad profile remains the same: play hard to beat, let Hany Mukhtar cook. That worked better a couple seasons ago, when Hany had younger, plumper legs and a stronger supporting cast. In 2024, it led to a fucking terrible start to the season (click here, scroll way down), the second-fewest goals scored in all of MLS (click here, scroll down, then up) and missing the playoffs – and the early signs for 2025 don’t point to immediate improvement. You don’t see a lot of attacking talent (flair is dead) when you look at Nashville’s starting XI last week and the week before. After Mukhtar, Andy Najar gives you something up the right, but also from the back. and it’s been a while for Daniel Lovitz (good defender, tho); Alex Muyl provides strong running and competent combination, but that wraps up introductions for the crew tasked with feeding English (right?) forward, Sam Surridge. They haven’t got much to him lately – a (likely bogus) offside call pulled back his only “goal” of 2025 (against the Revs; pretty good) – which forces Surridge to move all over the receive the ball. While posted respectable numbers last season, he’s not a great field player and that just puts things back on Mukhtar and his Mediocre Men to find Surridge in good spots, but he’s not there – see moving all over – and the whole thing looks pretty circular and, no doubt, frustrating for all concerned.

Getting Reacquainted with Nashville SC, the Plain Sister of MLS

C'mon. You have an opinion. All of you.

Thumbnail History
Nashville SC joined in the COVID season (2020), along with Inter Miami CF, but fate has made them the plain sister, or the unathletic brother to MLS's (for now) glamour boys. And they built their inaugural roster as if they'd had their fortunes told by an insurance agent. It started with anchoring the backline with Walker Zimmerman and the midfield with ferever-MLS vet, Dax McCarty; the front-office honchos filled out those two lines with still more familiar, imposing figures – e.g., Dave Romney and Daniel Lovitz in defense and Anibal Godoy in midfield. When it came to the offense, Nashville spent both big and wisely on one player – Hany Mukhtar, a future (and deserved) league MVP (2022) – but spent a couple seasons looking to squeeze more production than other teams got out of MLS journeymen like C. J. Sapong, Teal Bunbury, or even Alex Muyl and Fafa Picault. That’s not to say they haven’t tried to level up with bolder signings – e.g., I thought they’d landed a secondary scorer with winger Randall Leal, alas – but pinching pennies in the attack remains something of a tradition with Nashville. Against that, a good defense goes a long way toward getting reliable results and their formula had them making the playoffs every season since joining MLS, if sometimes only as a wild card, which, again, doesn’t count around here*…also, yes, wait for it. That made the consistent and, to be clear, there are worse things, but I don’t know that any meaningful collection of pundits and punters every genuinely believed they’d go anywhere in any post-season. Nashville didn’t even make the MLS Cup quarterfinals in Mukhtar’s 2022 super-season, though they did in 2021, aka, the one season where they scored well over the league average and I think there’s a lesson in that…

…and, no, things haven’t panned out on the implementation side, but I do think the Organization has tried to take it to heart. Hold that thought....

Total Joy Points: 3

How They Earned Them (& *How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
MLS Playoffs/Quarterfinals: 2020, 2021
Leagues Cup Runner-Up: 2023

Getting Reacquainted with Nashville SC, the Proles of MLS

I'm very pro-labor, but this team needs more bosses.

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

A bit dull, honestly, which pushes the devil to the details – i.e., see the Half Dozen Names to Know section below. They’ve made the playoffs every season since joining MLS and, if I’m being honest, I don’t really recall whether pundits and punters every genuinely believed they’d go anywhere in the post-season, never mind go big. A glance at the playoff brackets for each of their four seasons in the league argues against: Nashville SC made the conference semis in (weird) 2020 and 2021, but haven’t been able to clear the first round since (see 2022 and 2023). The best way to describe Nashville’s short history would be…a lot of that.

Best Season(s)

2021? I guess? That post-season saw Nashville roll Orlando City SC in the first round and push a solid Philadelphia Union team to the wall (aka, PKs) in the Eastern Conference semis. Heck, they even scored a goal in that one.

Long-Term Tendencies

Can confirm: 2021 was Nashville’s best season, an argument bolstered by the fact that they actually found a little headroom above the league scoring average for the first and, so far, only time – yessir, 55 goals scored against an MLS-wide average of 47.4. Their scoring has ranged from a whisker over the goals-for average in one other season, while falling a ways below in the other two. And that makes the secret to Nashville’s version of success…correct, stubborn, borderline immovable defenses from one season to the next – i.e., 10 goals below the average against in (a quite low-scoring (and, again, weird) 2020 season, a shade under 14 goals below in 2021, just over nine in 2022, and 15 in 2023. Balls that cannot be broken, basically.

Identity: the Proles of MLS

Joy Points: 4, aka, fuck it, it's a job and it pays the bills.

Nashville SC 2-2 Portland Timbers: Improv Without a Prompt & a Bit o' Luck

I feel good, I do...just keep the damn thing on, for now.

What lies all but inertly for long stretches of time, only to come to and get to business?

The answer could be Jaroslaw Niezgoda or, in this game and, best case, the season, the Portland Timbers. It could be both, it could be neither: that’s my way of signaling I won’t even start getting ahead of myself.

After slipping down to somewhere between doomed and rock-bottom, the theretofore irrelevant Portland Timbers nabbed two straight brass rings on their way to a 2-2 draw on the road at Nashville SC on the back of (yet) a(nother) brace from the theretofore irrelevant Jaroslaw Niezgoda, at which point you have to ask yourself, is it all just a metaphor waiting for the big director in the sky box to whisper...action?

Again, good sense and more than a few visuals from tonight make a strong case for walking along the bandwagon to see what happens before you run ahead of it shouting promises of beer, wine and trophies. Best not say reckless things, and so on. If only the next word were “but.”

Leaving points on the table has become a house specialty for Nashville, for one, even against lower-rated teams that the Timbers. While I’d argue they never looked dominant tonight (confident might even be a stretch), you could feel the nerves of both team and city rattling the second a pair of their errors gifted Niezgoda the penalty kick. Penalty kicks being what they are – which Dairon Asprilla did his bit to sign, seal and deliver the Timbers to within one goal of one point – those two moments could have served as a wake-up call to Nashville or a rallying flag to the Timbers.

Fortunately for the visitors, momentum had already tilted Portland’s way courtesy of Eryk Williamson coming on for the valiant, sometimes-limited, yet clearly kaput, Yimmi Chara. [Ed. - I’ll defend him as a player (though probably not a DP...and is he still?) more than most; if they held a Utility Player of the Year Award and they gave me a vote, Yimmi would get mine, but I digress.] I also doubt any Timbers fan would seriously argue that Portland didn’t have a better second half. I’ll get to that, and Eryk’s role in it, but a word about the first half first.

Nashville SC v Portland Timbers Preview: A Hall of Mirrors in Another House

Makes me wanna puke, too.

The Portland Timbers road form (1-4-4) lends a real "but for Providence Park" vibe to the Timbers 2022 season. On the plus side, they’re playing a team that has struggled to get all three points at home – yes, even lately. First, their numbers:

Nashville SC
Record/Basics: 7-5-5, 26 points, 2-1-3 home, 5-4-2 road; 22 gf, 19 ga, +3
Last 10: TLWLWTWTLW (4-3-3; 2-1-2 home; middling, but last 5 were pretty soft)
Oppo: @ SJ, @ LAG, v RSL, @ HOU, v MTL, v ATL, @ COL, v SJ, v SKC, @ DC

What We Know About Them
I have a misconception that Nashville’s struggling stuck in the back of my mind, but that probably looks at their 2022 through the refracted lens of their home games – more on that later. When most people think Nashville, they probably think Walker Zimmerman at the back, Dax McCarty (somehow still) steering traffic through the middle, and Hany Muhktar running loose up top/off that old war horse C. J. Sapong. And, yes, both have done well in 2022 (8 goals, 5 assists for Hany, 5 goals, 3 assists for Sapong; funny side note on Sapong, he’s still an every other year player). Other words that may come to mind: combative and counter-attacking.

All that has largely held up lately, if with a little less Zimmerman (see, qualifying, World Cup).

Notes on Recent Form
I haven’t seen a ton of Nashville this season – and this’ll be my first full 90 with them – so I’ll have to stretch the numbers a bit. That said, I’m expecting the way they create chances to have a fair resemblance to what they tried – and with some real success against Orlando City SC in their midweek U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal (here’s the MLS in 15 for your edification). Nashville came within three stoppage time minutes of winning that game and had a fair argument for the better team, but that was also another road game; their last two wins both came on the road (at Colorado Rapids and at DC United). When I look at their last three home games – against Atlanta, San Jose and SKC – I’d expect at least five-six points out them, and yet they managed just two. More to the point, they rarely see more of the ball, even at home, and they played arguably their worst game when they attempted possession – the home loss to SKC.

To flesh out the general profile, Nashville doesn’t create a ton of chances – they probably averaged 11 shots/game in their last 5-6 games – but they get a useful number of shots on goal out of it (e.g., around six). And they probably get away with it because they rarely let the opposition get to, never mind much over, a 1.0 xG.

Nashville SC 3-0 FC Cincinnati: Problems Versus Solutions

Because no one wants to look at piles of shit.

Is there anything more to say than FC Cincinnati got beat comprehensively by a better team? Even with some surprises in the numbers - e.g., Cincinnati nearly tied Nashville SC for total shots (…when?) - but the real-time action and the balance of the numbers (0.3 xG for Cincy) all bear out the final verdict: an easy-breezy 3-0 win for Nashville.

The game started (very) poorly, and with a soft goal, and the only “but for” Cincinnati fans can point to is that time Brenner spun a Nashville defender near the center stripe and ran in alone on Joe Willis…only to see Taylor Washington take it off his toes at the decisive moment. Cincy was just one goal down at that point, so who knows what might have been? Back in the real-world, and outside that, I counted one good attacking move for Cincinnati - Brenner combining with Edgar Castillo and Luciano Acosta somewhere around the 50th minute - but that was the most they troubled Nashville’s defense, aka, certainly more than Joe Gyau’s spazzing raid up the middle or Haris Medunjanin’s free-kick from deep-left in Nashville’s defensive third.

The craziest numbers I see are possession/number of passes, the only area where one can argue Cincinnati ran up the numbers. Literally nothing came of that because Cincinnati struggled mightily to play through what I’d call “in-fill” by Nashville, a spin on the concept of pressing. The basics of the tactic (and it’s something I see against the Portland Timbers a fair amount) seek to clog the passing lanes inside your opponent’s half; it gets pressure to the ball, but without chasing it all over, and it mostly works by getting in the way. For all…wow, 653 passes made (again….when?), Cincinnati couldn’t get much of anywhere, at least not up the field. Nashville reined in the line sometime in the 2nd half, but that only translated to Cincinnati dicking around with the ball in a different part of the field.

To wrap up Nashville, I’ll start by thanking C. J. Sapong for backing up my prediction that he’d factor into the result - though I can’t say I saw a two goal, three assist game when I typed that into twitter….golly, last Wednesday. All in all, this was a pretty straightforward case of a team having a couple more piles of its shit together going against one with their piles a little more scattered and disconnected; Nashville hasn’t lost in seven games for a reason and they’re playing even against some of the best in the Eastern Conference (e.g., a 1-0 home win over the Philadelphia Union and a goal-less road draw at Columbus Crew SC). FC Cincinnati, meanwhile, is not.

Nashville SC 2-2 FC Cincinnati: Take the Point and Leave Town VERY Quietly

Just makes you sad at a certain point...

After taking a 2-0 lead that no one saw coming, FC Cincinnati spent the final 70+ minutes of tonight’s 2-2 draw at Nashville SC showing, in thorough detail, that they still don’t know what the hell they’re doing. I’ll squeeze all the bright spots out of this lipsticked pig that I can below, but, golly, was that a shit-show. And to think I came in with low expectations…

To ac…centuate the positive, Cincinnati genuinely deserved that first goal. It came during a strong period, the play was sharp and aggressive, it involved all the shiny new toys: there was a lot to love about it, not least the insidious promise of better days comin’. Luciano Acosta was where they needed him to be (just a shade off the front of the attack), Ronald Matarrita split two defenders with an excellently weighted pass. In the moment it felt like they would do it all day. And the way Cincy’s press frazzled and dislocated Nashville’s passing out of the back? You asked yourself, where is Dax McCarty? Where is Anibal Godoy?

Little by little, though, you couldn’t stop seeing McCarty and Godoy. Worse, if you weren’t seeing them, you saw the ball advance via Daniel Lovitz, Alistair Johnston and the very and lethally lively Randall Leal. Once that started, what Cincinnati fans watched tonight stopped being a game and turned into an exercise in extreme patience. Fuck it, call it indulgence.

When the very expensive and thereafter invisible Brenner got close enough to punish a dodgy touch by Nashville’s ‘keeper Joe Willis, he gave Cincinnati nine lives’ worth of cushion to take something out of the game. It was a good moment for the kid, no question, but it’s nothing a team can rely on for production; to be a dick about it, it falls within the realm of a “hustle play” that any eager mug can do and, as such, falls well short of $15 million expectations. Credit where it’s due, Brenner took responsibility for the resulting (and just) penalty kick and went on to put his shot past a (very large) ‘keeper who guessed right.

FC Cincinnati would go on to burn through eight-and-a-half of those lives, at a minimum. Honestly, if Hany Mukhtar was worth half his DP tag, Cincinnati would have lost by a goal or two; Dave Romney had a free header from six yards out for gods’ sake, which extended the borrowed time well beyond any reasonable credit. The gods did ‘em right tonight - or wrong, depending how you look at it. The very, very hard reality about the rest of the season: the gods can only help them so much, and FC Cincinnati has to sort out the rest. And, based on tonight at least, they don’t look up for it.

Portland Timbers 1-0 Nashville SC: Malaise & Balance

Get out those sweaters people, and turn down the thermostat.

Unless I’m mistaken, the Portland Timbers’ 1-0 win over Nashville SC had exactly two defining moments. The first happened when Diego Valeri stumbled into the on-side pocket where Andy Polo’s more alert than good header found him; Valeri finished the moment in a manner befitting someone to whom a team pays the big bucks, and that was literally the game. The other happened when Steve Clark tipped Anibal Godoy’s rifle-shot around his far post. Between them, those moments provided Portland’s margin of victory, and, good God, no, it wasn’t fun to watch. Children fidgeted, I tell you...

If a person argued that nothing really happened on either side of those two moments, that person would not be wrong. That person is me. Sure, Walker Zimmerman came close at the very deathiest of the death, but he nodded the ball wide; at the end of the first half, and quite possibly in injury time once again, Randall Leal cut his way into an opening…and then he fired his shot so close to Clark that he didn’t even have to move to save it…

…with that, I believe I’ve covered all points of interest. Thank you for attending today’s tour, just promise that you’ll never speak favorably about it to anyone, any time, ever. Don't encourage this shit, for the love of all that's holy.

This was an awful game, from Portland’s POV in particular. They scored on one of three shots fired, and one of the two they put on goal. For their part, Nashville put up a normal and reasonable number of shots, but I’ve listed the only two that really counted above…and, dear god in heaven, can that really be it?

The grim reality is fairly straightforward: based on the available evidence, Portland will struggle to get even one point out of any game in which they allow the opposition to score. Nashville couldn’t score, and that let the one, beautifully fluky goal Valeri fired in stand up. My memory matches the box score perfectly, in that I can’t recall even one more decent move by the Timbers outside Felipe Mora’s…competent (but no better) shot on Nashville’s goal. To wrap up what I’m getting at, yes, the attack looks that bad right now.