Soccer
“I think you see the mentality in the group.”
Nashville SC head coach B.J. Callaghan was full of praise after his team’s dominant 3-0 win over the Columbus Crew at GEODIS Park on Wednesday night. The Coyotes saw their 15-match unbeaten run across all competitions end at Inter Miami CF on Saturday, but returning home, Nashville bounced back.
Emphatically.
“Miami is obviously a really good team, but we don’t believe that they got our best punch,” said Callaghan. “… We made a commitment to each other to go through our process, review, try to figure out what we need to improve. But one of those was that no matter what happens tonight, they’re gonna get our best punch.
“They’re gonna get our best punch from the whole team.”
A+ All-Stars
Nashville certainly punched Columbus, thanks to their three All-Stars. Andy Najar, Sam Surridge and Hany Mukhtar combined for their second goal, a gorgeous quick transition that saw Najar spring Surridge into space, who then set up Mukhtar for a simple finish.
The goal was a timely reminder of why the trio is heading to Austin next week to represent the MLS All-Stars against the best from LIGA MX.
“It’s nice that we scored goals, and I think we scored an All-Star goal,” laughed Callaghan. “It was the three All-Stars that made that counter-attack, so kind of cool.”
The trio caused Columbus’ backline problems all game long. Surridge tallied 1g/1a, while Mukhtar also bagged a goal, bringing their combined goal total to 28 on the year and propelling Surridge back into the standalone lead for the Golden Boot presented by Audi.
Najar finished the evening with two assists, making him only the second-ever player in club history, alongside Mukhtar, to record at least 10 assists in a single season.
Trophy aspirations
In their first full season under Callaghan, Nashville are flying. They’re third in the Supporters’ Shield race with 44 points and 1.91 points per game, and continue to pull off impressive results against the teams around them.
But they’re not getting carried away with where they are in the table in mid-July.
“Everyone knows where we are sitting in the conference, but also we take one game at a time,” said midfielder Eddi Tagseth. “We were disappointed with the Miami game because we felt like the way we played, we deserve more than zero points. And we also felt that we could have played better. So this was a perfect way to bounce back.”
As Nashville keep winning games, it’s proof of concept for a team who are simultaneously early in a rebuild and a legitimate contender for silverware. Beating a high-flying Columbus team will only strengthen their belief.
“That’s a really good Columbus team. They’ve been really good for a long period of time,” said Callaghan. “Tonight, I thought this was a really complete team performance.
“We analyze the game through phases of play. We were able to execute at a pretty high level in a lot of phases.”
Read MoreMargherita Pingree