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.

Level Set 14, FC Dallas: Embracing the Ceiling, Perhaps Reality

FC Dallas Academy, Class of [Every Year].

What follows is a brief history of FC Dallas, 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
FC Dallas, fka, the Dallas Burn have the singular honor of playing in the most WTF MLS Cup ever played. When they lined up against the Colorado Rapids – then competing in their second final – I have to believe that the collective response boiled down to, “sure, why not?” Apart from winning the 2016 Supporters’ Shield (and tying Red Bull New York on total points in 2015), FC Dallas have not enjoyed what most people – including what I'm guessing is a non-trivial percentage of their fans - would call obvious success. When it comes to actual silverware, they have the Shield mentioned above plus U.S. Open Cup titles in 1997 and 2016 (a great year, by their standards), aka, not much to fill the cabinet after 30 seasons. And yet they still gently undermine the entire “Joy Point” concept (see below for methodology*) because they rank ninth in MLS history based more for consistency than what any fan would recognize as joy. They racked up most of those points by just clearing low bar to make the playoffs over MLS’s first ten seasons – which took some fucking missing when the league had only 10-16 teams – and, while things have slowed down, they have generally made the playoffs every other season (or so) since then. More to the point, it’s not like Dallas hasn’t tried to keep up with MLS’s bigger, richer teams: hell, they swung hard to land one-time FIFA Player of the Year, Denilson, if at a bargain price; they very much got what they paid for. To their credit, they kept their chins up on either side of that debacle, with smart(er) signings like Ariel Graziani (his second stop) and Ronnie O’Brien, some of your better surprises of their eras, even if injuries ate too much of O’Brien’s career. Their hit-rate improved on the foreign signings side, even with some hitches, with league-elite players like David Ferreira and, less so (due to injury), Mauro Diaz, or even a higher-profile (if gently under-performing) player like Fabian Castillo. More than anything else, Dallas has relied on, and I mean this sincerely, top-notch budget signings – e.g., Michael Barrios, Blas Perez, and running one of, if not the most effective academy systems in these United States. The long list of graduates include Kellyn Acosta, Jesus Ferreira, Reggie Cannon, Brandon Servania, Ricardo Pepi, and, from the LA Galaxy’s 2024 MLS Cup team, Edwin Cerrillo. [NOTE: I like to limit links with active players; who knows where they'll go?] Moreover, Dallas’ belief in youth has kick-started some of the all-time great careers in MLS history (picking through this all-time list), e.g., Walker Zimmerman, Drew Moor, Clarence Goodson, Matt Hedges…I hope you’re seeing the pattern in there (see below). Against that, I’ve covered what all the above has given them and have no doubt that falls short of what both the organization and the fans of it want. Still, that dynamite academy, aka, America’s answer to the Eredivisie’s AFC Ajax, doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon…and yet, who can help but wonder how high they could rise if they kept some of those promising players two days after their 20th birthday.

Nashville SC 1-2 FC Cincinnati: To the Hungrier Hippo Go the Spoils

The scene from Geodis Park.

When your local team gets a game that demands about a half dozen gut-checks and they pass the majority of them. FC Cincinnati’s 2-1 road win at Nashville SC was a big one – probably the biggest of 2025 so far.

About the Game
It played out as a test of wills, honestly, an occasion where either team could have walked away with three points or both could have left with one. The momentum went back and forth throughout – e.g., I thought Nashville held the advantage from the 15th minute to the upper-mid 20s, before Cincy yanked it back over the next 5-10 minutes – and, when the goals came, it didn’t have much to do with which house was ascendant. Cincinnati had the better opening shots (one each for Evander and Luca Orellano) and a nose ahead in the game state, only to see Nashville push them back with counter-raids over the following minutes (I think Hany Mukhtar's near-miss was the first in the full highlights). That threw a wobble into Cincy’s step for a while – for what it’s worth, I don’t think Obinna Nwobodo and Pavel Bucha ever got a firm handle in the middle – but they managed to settle and clamp things down…until Nashville broke the deadlock in the late 30s. Even after Edvard “Eddi” Tagseth got behind Cincy’s (over-committed) left, the set up didn’t look like much. Nick Hagglund (literally) threw himself at the cross (sacrifice the body!), but could only lean it out of danger and accidentally teed up Jack Bauer for a short-range blast from the right side of the area. With the dread prickling up – what would a third winless game mean for Cincy, never mind a defeat? – Evander stepped in to tamp it down as only he can – i.e., getting fouled within the same ZIP Code as the opposition goal and scoring saucily on the ensuing free kick. That sent the teams in the halftime locker room tied and raring to get back to it. Nashville came out the sharper and had multiple, early opportunities to get back on top. The first – and biggest – came when Kevin Denkey did the right thing – i.e., keep tabs on Walker Zimmerman in the area on a set piece – the wrong way – i.e., by wrapping him up not once, but twice. The ref called the penalty, rightly, before Roman Celentano smacked away the penalty kick, righteously. Celentano barely had the time to roll out of that headstand before he had to get back into position for a crazy sequence of saves that included 1) punching out the original cross, 2) kicking away a point-blank shot from the weak side, and 3 (maybe 4)) slapping away one or two follow-ups from still-closer range (maybe all those saves made the official snapshort? nope; MLS doesn't do justice by saves anymore). After that little heroic miracle, the second half settled into the game I expected: long periods of the ball getting tangled among flailing legs and rushing players all over the middle of the field - think Hungry Hungry Hippos where the ball keeps bouncing off the front of the snapping mouths. Here and there throughout that period, Cincinnati exposed themselves with nervous giveaways to Nashville players (more later). They contained most of them (again, more later), just as Nashville contained most of Cincy’s escapes from the midfield scrum. Given that frenzy in the middle, seeing Nwobodo limp off early felt like a potential game-breaker, but the gravity of that battling chaos sucked everything back into itself. To make what could track as a “homer” read, I thought Cincinnati got over Nashville a little over the last 15-20 minutes of the game. Orellano pinged the crossbar off a deflection in the middle of all that, but it was a semi-hopeful ball over the top to (substitute) Corey Baird that handed Cincinnati a golden opportunity to take all three points. After playing a damn near perfect game – it was his man-bunned head that knocked Orellano’s shot to the crossbar – Zimmerman flapped the ball away with his left arm and sent Denkey to the spot. I hate the stutter-step approach, to the extent I believe it should be banned (goalkeepers have enough disadvantages on penalty kicks), but I loved the goal: Denkey beat Joe Willis on the kick and Cincy beat Nashville on the day, the end.

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.

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 FC Dallas, a Narrowly Successful MLS Team

But....is it really waiting to be filled?

Thumbnail History
FC Dallas, fka, the Dallas Burn have the singular honor of playing in the most WTF MLS Cup ever played. When they lined up against the Colorado Rapids in MLS Cup 2010 – then competing in their second final – I have to believe that the collective response boiled down to, “sure, why not?” Apart from winning the 2016 Supporters’ Shield (and tying Red Bull New York on total points in 2015), FC Dallas have not enjoyed what most people, very much including a whopping percentage of their fans, would call success. When it comes to actual silverware, they have the Shield mentioned above plus U.S. Open Cup titles in 1997 and 2016 (a great year, by their standards), aka, not much to fill the cabinet after 29 seasons. And yet they still gently undermine the entire “Joy Point” concept (see below for methodology*) because they rank ninth in MLS history based more for consistency than what any fan would recognize as joy. They racked up most of those points simply by clearing low bar to make the playoffs over MLS’s first ten seasons – it took some fucking missing when the league had only 10-16 teams – and, while things have slowed down, they have (very) generally made the playoffs every other season (or so) since then. More to the point, it’s not like Dallas hasn’t tried to keep up with MLS’s bigger, richer teams: hell, they swung hard to land a one-time world-record transfer, Denilson, only to miss harder than the swung. To their credit, they kept their chins up on either side of that debacle, signing players like Ariel Graziani and Ronnie O’Brien while most MLS burned time waiting for the next kids to graduate (yes, that’s a gross over-simplification). They improved on the signing side, if with some hitches, by landing playmakers like David Ferreira and, less so (due to injury), Mauro Diaz, or even a higher-profile (if gently under-performing) player like Fabian Castillo…and, unless you want to throw in a current player like Petr Musa, thus endeth the short list. More than anything else, Dallas has relied on, and I mean this sincerely, top-notch budget signings everyone else missed – e.g., Michael Barrios, Blas Perez, and running one of, if not the most effective academy/homegrown system in these United States. That long list includes Kellyn Acosta, Jesus Ferreira, Reggie Cannon, Brandon Servania, Ricardo Pepi, and, a star from the Los Angeles Galaxy’s latest run to MLS Cup, Edwin Cerrillo. Moreover, Dallas’ belief in youth has kick-started some of the all-time great careers in MLS history (picking through this all-time list), e.g., Walker Zimmerman, Drew Moor, Clarence Goodson, Matt Hedges…I hope you’re seeing the pattern in there (see below). Going the other way, I’ve covered what all the above has given them and have no doubt that falls short of what both the organization and the fans of it want. On the plus side, that dynamite academy, aka, America’s answer to the Eredivisie’s AFC Ajax, doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere soon…and yet, who can help but wonder how high they could rise if they kept some of those promising players two days after their 20th birthday.

Total Joy Points: 21

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.

Getting Reacquainted with FC Dallas, MLS's Consummate B (or B-) Students

How's your Italian, young man?

[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

FC Dallas, fka, the Dallas Burn undermine the entire “Joy Point” concept (see end of post for methodology*) because they rank seventh in MLS history more for consistency than what any fan would recognize as joy. Choosing their best season required no more thought than choosing between the two seasons they actually won a trophy. Dallas rose to these lofty heights the same way Red Bull New York did – i.e., by being in the league for as long as they have and consistently making the playoffs. Unlike the Red Bulls, I don’t believe anyone outside their most committed fans (meant, here, as both committed and “committed”) have ever uttered the words, “I think this is Dallas’ year. They did reach MLS Cup once, in 2010, but they lost to…the Colorado Rapids. (When people tell you that MLS is a weird league, believe them.) And yet, and to their very real credit, Dallas have missed the playoffs just seven times in 28 seasons (including one season they got tagged by the Wooden Spoon (2003)) and they finished in the top half of the table in (literally) half the time. Not a bad run, all in all, but not a great one, and not what any reasonable person would describe as “joy.” If one had to grade the Dallas franchise what could you give them but a B, or maybe even a B-. On the plus side, they do have that dynamite academy, aka, America’s answer to Ajax in the Eredivisie…makes you wonder how high they could rise if they kept some of those promising players two days after their 20th birthday. Or thereabouts.

Best Season(s)

The 2016 season, easily, and with nod to the prior season as a sign of things to come. I had to check back to both rosters to remember who suited up for them in both years (2015 and 2016) and, small coincidence, those same players are well-represented (if not over-represented and via a cheat) in the 10 Players to know section below. Those sections speak to another general truth about FC Dallas: it’s less that they never make ambitious signings than that they often miss the mark when they do, sometimes wildly. At any rate, Dallas won both the Supporters’ Shield and the U.S. Open Cup in 2016, which means their fans felt actual joy once – which I suppose beats the usual experience of salivating over the latest academy kid that they’ll say goodbye to right around the time they remember his name...

FC Cincinnati 3-1 Nashville SC: The Hardest Easy Thing

Simplifies where you focus, really.

It starts with a question: did FC Cincinnati’s 3-1 win over Nashville SC look easy as the final score to you?

Answer however the spirit moves you, but, when you do, I’d encourage you to think as broadly as possible. Think of all the questions you want answered, basically, and go from there.

With all that in mind, here’s what I saw:

A Cincinnati team forever on the brink of breaking through versus a Nashville team forever falling short. Sure, Nashville knocked canyon-sized dents into their own chances when two of their players did two very stupid things in as many minutes – I’m talking stuff that someone who paid them to throw the game would tell them not to do, because it would telegraph the con (guys! call me!) – but they also might have had their better moments when they had the fewest players. But even that nods to the flipside of the final result – and the game.

Badly as they played – and put me in the “very” camp when it comes to a vote – Nashville still came within a penalty call that (rightly) fell apart upon review of tying this game (should be in here somewhere, if not blame them, not me). They produced flurries on either side of that and it all came after Taylor Washington got his second yellow for...he tried to grab the ball, I think(?), and Fafa Picault picked up his second yellow for, honestly, what do you call Picault’s lunge into Santiago Arias (right?)? A protest against uneven refereeing? A you-can’t-fire-me-I-quit cry for attention? Both came so close together that we never had time to figure out how one sending off would affect the game...

...and yet, can you think of a time when Nashville ever really looked in this game? They scored the first goal, but that blew through a vast fucking desert like the last tumbleweed in the world, a singular sign of life in a vast, expansive nothing. Nashville struggled to step into Cincinnati’s defensive third under any kind of control, which means they struggled to find Hany Mukhtar, and that’s how Nashville ends a game with six shots total and just one of them on/in goal. And that’s more or less what I mean by “forever falling short.” 90% of everything Nashville tried fizzled out. Maybe it’s simple as having no Plan B for the Plan A, aka, “Get Hany the Ball,” but, again, Nashville made their best attacking moments during a last-ditch push for the equalizer – i.e., after Mukhtar came off. More than anything else – and this thought is by no means original to me – Nashville ended the night as a team in desperate need of a Big Think...

...so, why did it take FC Cincy so long to put that team away?

USA 0-0 Colombia: Mom, Dad, I Don't Know How I Feel About (January) Camp

Me tonight, only 20 years ago and with a lot more hair.

I was a little torn about the line-up the U.S. trotted out in tonight’s positively somnolent 0-0 draw against Colombia. January camp is, or has become, all about calling in players from the fringe and giving them a moment – I get that - but I would have rather seen interim coach Anthony Hudson name and stick with a starting XI over both games. Instead, he played the camp like a bad hand in draw poker and swapped out 10 players between Wednesday’s loss and tonight; unless I’m miscounting, only Walker Zimmerman started both games (and he lasted longest in this one).

Now, had you presented me with both line-ups and asked me which would do better, I’m pretty sure I would have picked tonight’s line-up, regardless of opponent. If nothing else, it featured the more experienced/accomplished players, particularly with the national team set-up – e.g., Paul Arriola, Aaron Long, Jesus Ferreira, Kellyn Acosta, Sean Johnson – and yet they delivered less in every category I could name outside the spine of the defense.

To state the obvious, Serbia and Colombia are different teams that played different styles. Perhaps knowing they could get something lethal going given the right circumstances, Serbia gave the U.S. more of the ball while Colombia played its defense high enough to force errors and broke from there; call it a second cousin to a press, twice removed. I don’t know what Wednesday’s line-up would have looked like against Colombia, in other words, and mostly hope that that multiverse got treated to a more entertaining game because, my god, was tonight’s game like watching old people fuck in front of drying paint....you have my apologies for the mental image...

The Mothership’s stats page doesn’t post xG for U.S. games, but the Yanks’ five total shots suggests something in the 0.5 range. The only two shots on goal involved Matthew Hoppe – he set up Paxten Aaronson for one (and he could have done better) and fired from the channel for the other – but those didn’t amount to anything besides easy-ish saves for “A. Montero,” Colombia’s ‘keeper. The only other decent U.S. chance I can recall from my times of full, attentive consciousness was the chance Ferreira opened up with a smart first touch. The way he lost that ball to a swarm of Colombian defenders sums up the game in a singular moment. The Colombians broadly overwhelmed the Americans tonight, but without ever coming close to beating them - i.e., boredom, by any other name.

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.

United States 2-0 Costa Rica: Ruler Theory

All shapes, sizes and qualities. All too big for some.

The United States Men’s National came out the other end of a scrapping slog against Costa Rica with a 2-0 win earlier today. It certainly wasn’t handed to the U.S. – Costa Rica kicked ‘em a couple times to remind the U.S. they were there to play (nothing malicious, just present) – and they struggled for long stretches of the game to play through a well-organized and well-coordinated defense. The break-through goals came late, though, and that’s the story of this edgy friendly.

One thing, though: I will never get used to Gregg “Both Gs” Berhalter’s fixation on dicking around with the ball in the back. I think I’m starting to get the risk/reward calculus involved – more below – but you saw the ball get tangled in Zac Steffen’s leg that one time in the second half, and I could feel the breath of that Costa Rican attacker on the back of my neck. Anyway…

The win felt good, especially in the sense that it underlined last weekend’s result against Panama, and in more ways than one, but I won’t project much out of it. From what I understand (I was only half-listening, honestly), the U.S. will have all eligible, healthy players available for the two friendlies coming up at the end of March – against Ecuador and against Chile – and those games will hand us all a big enough ruler to accurately measure the machine “Both Gs” Berhalter is building, and the ground underfoot will feel a little firmer after that. All the same, I plan on withholding judgment on the design and elegance of the car we’re driving till after this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Back to the Panama thing, the Americans started just as slowly in this game as they did against Panama, only with the twist of facing Costa Rica, a better team. The Central Americans’ counter was very much on at that point, and they caught the U.S. midfield too far forward a couple times. Their pressure was effective, but also efficient: they built it around positioning, as opposed to scrambling, and they had a player in the pocket of any American when the ball arrived at his feet, plus another player or two nearby foreclosing on available outlets. Yanqui players struggled with this, none more than the Chicago’s Fire’s youngster, Djordje Mihailovic. After impressing around the edges last week against Panama (with his movement, for me), Mihailovic reacted slowly here, and like his head was in different places there, but he coughed up the ball over and over again, and mostly via theft.

USA 3-0 Panama: Perfectly Adequate, Utterly Undramatic

There are many fruit-based comparisons available, but this one is mine.

I'll start with this: if you've missed Major League Soccer during the offseason, the U.S. Men's 3-0 win over Panama should have scratched that itch. Even going beyond (MLS-exclusive) personnel, that match came as close to, say, Columbus Crew SC pushing around, say, the Colorado Rapids as you're likely to see outside the real thing (yeah, yeah, the latest edition ended differently, the three points wound up in the same column). Better still, it all held up, all the way down to the U.S. fucking around with fire inside its own defensive third; pure Gregg Berhalter that, the high-risk, high(?)-reward of playing out of the back...god knows what a more accomplished national team than Panama will do with that high-wire act.

Credit where it's due, though: even if Panama put a couple chances on the American goal (I'd call Abdiel Arroyo's near-self-assisted goal they're best look), the U.S. never looked worse than strained - pretty much exactly what one would expect from a U.S. C-team playing Panama's B/C team. For what it's worth, I'd argue Panama ceded possession more than the U.S. maintained it, but the beginnings of something good lurk in that detail. Whether or not the Central Americans played to practice defending deep (who's to say?), their relative comfort on the ball when they had it stands as the only real warning sign I picked up from Berhalter's first outing as U.S. Men's coach. It's hard to lose sleep over that because, if a game between the U.S. and Panama's A-Teams is an apples-to-apples comparison, this was tangerine-to-tangerine, and nobody really starts its tangerines in the games that matter. Still, it was good to see the tangerines have their day. The question is, how many will one day become apples? (And...thus ends the fruit analogy.)

I'll get to that, but I want to flag one deeply and personally satisfying shift from the Jurgen Klinsmann era to tonight. In his post-game comments, Berhalter made a very clear point in directing a question about what coaching his first game for the U.S. Men meant to him (from a notably close-talking Sebastian Salazar) to praise for the players. If he follows this up by taking full responsibility for the first crushing loss, Berhalter will get a solid year of slack from me. Now, back to the tangerine thing...

A fairly constant stream of chatter plays under friendlies like this, one that acknowledges that the "real starters" wait in the wings to take over when the real games come to town. Anyone who wants to change that equation has to stand out - and several players did that for the U.S. Men tonight, including the San Jose Earthquake's Nick Lima's balls-out tackle and next-level cross to pick out Walker Zimmerman for the U.S.'s second goal; or just everything Zimmerman did with his head all day long (that he might be better with his head than he is with his feet speaks volumes about how goddamn good he is with his head); there was also Jonathan Lewis' nifty change of pace against [Panamanian fullback] (sorry!) to set up the U.S.'s third goal; which went to Christian Ramirez who, in his few minutes on the field, managed to play a cleaner, striker role than Gyasi Zardes managed all night and, golly, did anyone else feel the weight of Taylor Twellman going after Zardes' game? Jinkies....

Timbers Tie Seattle, and a Theoretical Update on the U.S. Men

Mom/Caleb makes me walk away.

I know I said I wasn’t going to comment on any Portland Timbers preseason games until the two before the season. I also know that I’ve run out of ways to say, “MLS Team X picked up Player Y. I don’t know anything about Player Y, so this move feels Z.” (And that's been the staple of a lot of the Late Tackle posts). I still want to talk about soccer, so, in two parts, I’ll write what I’ve got about yesterday’s 1-1 draw between the Timbers and the Seattle Sounders; after that, I’ll close a couple notes on the state of the U. S. Men’s National Team. Or at least what it feels like after a short sample…

Speaking of short samples, and I say this with love, I never know how much heart and brainpower I should invest when the Timbers play the mix of trialists, draftees, T2 guys and players from the Siberia end of the bench. Even if I like what I see, what are the actual odds that I’ll see that player again? Like petting a puppy at a pet store, I tell you…

Meanwhile, on Seattle’s side of the ledger, they sent out one of the rare MLS line-ups that I greet with a rare, but literal and thorough, “who the fuck is that?” Anonymity notwithstanding, one of those guys forced a penalty kick and forced the tie. And, yeah, I know Harry Shipp, and best o’ luck to the poor bastard. He’s on the tough end of a chunky depth chart. (And, guys? That picture? The one on the team’s roster page? He looks like a still from an ISIS snuff video. Maybe do a re-shoot, yeah?)

To wrap up Seattle, that seems like a good place to start. So, they got that Swedish cat, Gustav Svensson, and he seems to lurk around the same part of the field where people got used to seeing Cristian Roldan last season, so what’s that mean when Osvaldo Alonso comes back? As much as I preach squad rotation, players can get restless watching and, before you know it, a guy like Roldan accidentally winds up in the bin marked “surplus to requirements,” and then what, y’know? Depth is good and all, and I support it; it can have consequences. That’s all.

Downed by Dallas: Some Cheap Hope and a Remedy

I call it Plan P. You WILL remember!

I was able to believe that the Portland Timbers would find their way back into the game for quite a while. Until the 53rd minute, to put a number on it. That I felt like Portland had a chance against FC Dallas going in very likely had something to do with it; I mean, who doesn't want to see his/her hunches confirmed? And it's not like the Timbers didn't give people reason to hope: about five minutes after Dallas' opener a long ball from Liam Ridgewell found Lucas Melano over the top, who forced an error from Dallas 'keeper Chris Seitz, and one big enough to keep Dallas' defense dancing for a few full seconds. Even after Dallas raised the margin for victory to 2-0 at the very end of the first half, Melano meandered across the top of Dallas' attacking third, a move that, 1) threw off Dallas' defense and, 2) put him in position to later thunder a shot off the crossbar. It didn't go in, nor did Fanendo Adi's follow-up header. Still, think what drawing first blood in the second half could have meant to the contest. Or think what an answer to Dallas' first (soft) goal five minutes after it happened could have meant.

That paragraph above is loaded with a whole lotta what-might-have-been. Things felt decidedly over, sadly, once Walker "I Make 'O' Faces" Zimmerman blasted the ball over Jack Jewsbury's head and past Portland 'keeper Jake Gleeson for Dallas' third, final, and entirely sufficient goal in the ultimate 3-1 win (and with Steven Taylor clinging to Zimmerman's jersey like a damsel begging him not to leave). Zimmerman's goal launched the inquiry, basically, into what went wrong in Dallas this past Saturday.

I thought I had a pretty good narrative, one that I typed into my phone on the (long, almost interminable, really) train ride home. Those notes flagged details like a reminder of Portland's better days, back when the double pivot worked, germs of a theory on why Ridgewell and S. Taylor (goddammit, guys; sign fewer Taylors!) make for a lousy tandem, a belief that Dallas turned Diego Valeri invisible in the second half, and, finally, they argued that the Timbers have a "wing" problem. It all sounded very simple, basically.