Nashville SC earns home-field advantage throughout the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs and 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup berth
NEW YORK (Saturday, October 24, 2026) – Nashville SC officially claimed the 2026 Supporters’ Shield, awarded by the supporters to the MLS team with the best overall record each season. Nashville won the Supporters’ Shield for the first time in club history, and it marks the second-consecutive season with a major trophy after winning the 2025 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. They equaled the fastest clubs in MLS history to take home the Supporters’ Shield, doing so with three regular-season matches remaining.
By winning the Supporters’ Shield, Nashville will have home-field advantage throughout the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs and earn a berth in the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup, following a Semifinal run in this year’s edition of the regional competition. Nashville clinched the Supporters’ Shield tonight by defeating CF Montréal, 2-0, at Stade Saputo. After a scoreless first half, Nashville opened the scoring through Sam Surridge in the 52nd minute from close range (Watch Here). Club legend and captain Hany Mukhtar secured the Supporters’ Shield in the 76th minute, when he capitalized on a Montréal turnover and poked home a lunging finish (Watch Here).
- Photo and video assets of Nashville’s season and today’s match will be available HERE.
Nashville will host Game 1 of the Round One Best-of-3 Series when they face the winner of the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs Eastern Conference Wild Card match between the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds. Nashville will host Games 1 and 3 (if necessary) at GEODIS Park, while their opponent will host Game 2. The full Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs schedule will be announced at a later date.
Nashville SC is the fifth consecutive expansion club to win the MLS Supporters’ Shield and claim the honor in just their seventh MLS season. In order to eclipse Inter Miami CF’s single-season MLS points record (74 in 2024), Nashville needs five points from their final three matches. Since the start of 2025, Nashville rank first in points (124) and in wins (37), and second in goal differential (plus-56). They also became the second major professional sports team in Tennessee history to lift the regular-season points trophy, joining the 2017-18 Nashville Predators (NHL).
Leading Nashville has been head coach B.J. Callaghan, who, in his second full season with the club and third overall, has helped Nashville to a 21-3-7 record and a plus-43 goal differential. In his time with Nashville, Callaghan has totaled 40 wins in 74 games, becoming the only manager in the post-shootout era to accomplish this. Among all coaches with at least 50 regular-season MLS games, Callaghan is second in points per game (1.81) and second in winning percentage (63.5%). He is the first coach since Óscar Pareja in 2016 (FC Dallas) to win a Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup title and Supporters’ Shield within a two-year span.
The foundation of Nashville's Supporters' Shield campaign was its play at GEODIS Park. Nashville is unbeaten at their home stadium in regular-season action, going 14-0-1 with 43 points from those matches. The club’s 43 points at GEODIS Park are tied for the most in a single season in MLS history and they can still become the first team to win 15 games at home in a season. They have also outscored opponents by a 45-12 margin at home this season.
Nashville’s attack in 2026 has been led by their three Designated Players – Sam Surridge (18 goals, two assists), Hany Mukhtar (17 goals, eight assists), and Cristian Espinoza (four goals, 14 assists). Nashville’s 63 goal contributions from its Designated Players rank as the second most in MLS, behind only Inter Miami CF. Surridge has been one of the best No. 9s in MLS and he is one of three players in the league to score at least 40 goals since the beginning of last season. Meanwhile, Mukhtar has been a model of consistency, putting up his fifth season in the last six with at least 20 goal contributions, becoming just the fourth player in league history to do so. For Espinoza, his 14 assists lead the team, and he became the sixth player all-time to produce five-straight seasons of 10 or more assists.
In net, Brian Schwake has made the leap from his first season as a full-time starter to MLS All-Star selection and then to his U.S. Men’s National Team debut. Schwake’s season is trending toward one of the best by a goalkeeper in MLS history. Currently, he is the second goalkeeper in MLS history to produce a 0.80 goals-against average or better with at least 80 saves and 13 clean sheets, joining Andre Blake in 2022. His 78.33% winning percentage in net is the third-best single season in MLS history at the moment.
Defensively, Nashville has been the strongest team in MLS this season, allowing just 0.74 goals per game (23 total), which would be the best mark in a 34-game single season in MLS history. The breakout stars in the backline have been center-backs Maxwell Woledzi and Jeisson Palacios, who lead all Nashville defenders in minutes played, clearances, aerial duels, and interceptions. At right back, Andy Nájar earned the second-straight All-Star nod and currently has nine assists, which is the second most on the team. Left back has been a combination of MLS veteran Daniel Lovitz and U22 Initiative signing Reed Baker-Whiting emerging in his age 21 season.
Nashville’s historic season has also included several young players who have made key contributions throughout the year – all aged 24 or younger. 20-year-old Matthew Corcoran has broken out and played the most minutes (2,045) of that group, earning MLS 22 Under 22 recognition for his standout season (No. 21). Meanwhile, Warren Madrigal (22) and Ahmed Qasem (23) have combined for eight goals and five assists in less than 2,000 minutes of action. Despite an injury in the middle of the season, Australian National Team standout Patrick Yazbek (24) started 15 matches, with Nashville going 10-0-5 in those games. Finally, former Generation adidas signing Shak Mohammed (23) scored multiple timely goals as a substitute, including a crucial game-winning strike on July 17 against Atlanta United.
Nashville will continue its chase for the MLS single-season points record when they host the Philadelphia Union at GEODIS Park on Wednesday, October 28 (8:30 p.m. ET, MLS on Apple TV).
Below is the list of all-time Supporters’ Shield winners, listed in reverse chronological order.
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Nashville still has three games remaining in the 2026 regular season.
