There was always an expiration date on Nashville SC’s original roster build. Sooner or later a team in a salary-capped league – i.e., a team that can’t just buy its way into a new era – that relies almost solely on veterans, and one that mostly doesn’t develop young players, was going to hit the wall.
One or two guys would see their levels drop a bit. One or two guys would miss more time via injury. And down the whole thing would crumble.
That moment, for Nashville, actually happened directly after last year’s Leagues Cup. They played great ball en route to the final before losing to Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami in an epic PK shootout. They then won just twice more in their remaining 12 games, across both the regular season and Audi MLS Cup Playoffs.
It turns out that 12-game stretch was not an outlier. It was a taste of what was to come.
Let’s talk about 2024:
There are two things I really value in an MLS team (or in any team, really): aesthetically pleasing soccer and a commitment/ability to develop young players. So obviously I was never going to be the hugest Gary Smith fan.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t give the guy credit for a largely excellent tenure on the sideline in Nashville. They went from an expansion side with extremely low external expectations to four straight trips to the postseason, that wonderful Leagues Cup run, and a platform for Hany Mukhtar to become one of the very best players in the league (and an argument as one of the 10 best players in league history).
The soccer was almost all low-block-and-counter, which, yeah, I’ve got my gripes with. But by trading both possession and field position for space to attack into, the ‘Yotes were always able to get Hany out on the run, and getting Hany out on the run meant big chances for him and everyone around him. Meanwhile, defending deep was always a viable strategy because Nashville’s defenders were dominant in their own box. That made them unexpected xG differential darlings, year after year after year.
But Hany’s level dropped in 2024, and so did the level of the central defenders. They couldn't get out on the run, and they couldn’t defend in their box. They were no longer xG darlings; they were among the dregs.
Plan A wasn’t viable anymore.
Arguably even more limiting than Hany’s fall-off, or that of the center backs, was that there was no replacing Dax McCarty. The veteran was a winner wherever he went for two reasons:
- He was great at reading opposing patterns, which meant he made it difficult for opponents to build through his midfield, and
- He was S-Tier at hitting third-line passes to pockets of space, starting counters that other d-mids never realized were possible.
A big part of Nashville’s late 2023 swoon was that Dax had nothing left in the tank after Leagues Cup. A big part of Nashville’s 2024 misery is that Dax left for Atlanta in the offseason, and the only potential high-upside way to replace him was to use a U22 Initiative slot.
Smith, though, only rarely played guys under 25 years of age (on a minutes-weighted average, Nashville were one of the five oldest teams in the league in each of Smith’s four full years in charge), and virtually never in central midfield. Holdovers Sean Davis and Brian Anunga can’t see those passes, and veteran Aníbal Godoy hit a wall of his own last year. So they had to hope an elite, veteran ball-progressor fell into their laps.
When none did, GM Mike Jacobs traded for Dru Yearwood, a 24-year-old career backup central midfielder with the Red Bulls (who was still technically on a U22 deal). It went about as you’d expect:
That graphic’s from Ben Wright’s excellent diagnosis, written all the way back in April. It still tracks.
Things haven’t been great under new head coach B.J. Callaghan, who eventually took the reins after Smith was dismissed. But there are at least glimmers of a new dawn:
- A few young players are getting on the field in meaningful spots.
- Mukhtar and fellow DP attacker Sam Surridge, who struggled under Smith, have shown some chemistry.
- They’re trying to do more with the ball overall, and especially through midfield.
It wasn’t a complete turnaround, not by any stretch of the imagination. But it at least feels like a start has been made, with a path to a new game model and a new player development approach.
- Hany Mukhtar (AM): Can he get back to, say, 90% of his MVP-caliber best?
- Sam Surridge (FW): He’s on a big-money DP deal through 2026, so he’s not going anywhere soon.
- Walker Zimmerman (CB): Still one of the best CBs in the league.
- Shaq Moore (RB): A very good 1v1 defender and crosser of the ball who could add more in possession.
- Jack Maher (CB): The former No. 2 overall MLS SuperDraft pick has developed into a starter, though it feels like there are two more tiers he should be able to climb.
I don’t think there’s a team in a worse situation, in terms of roster budget flexibility, than Nashville. Zimmerman is locked into his 2025 deal, with Surridge and Mukhtar through 2026. That’s all three DP slots spoken for. Guys like Davis and Randall Leal are on guaranteed seven-figure deals next season, which means two max budget slots and some GAM on top of it. Then there are six other guys on guaranteed deals ranging from $525k to $881k, none of whom have proved to be elite (though Moore could come close).
Of significant earners on the roster, only Yearwood (expiring deal) and Godoy (club option) potentially come off the books.
In short, they are hemmed in by the previous roster build. So basically two things need to happen for a makeover to really hit this winter:
- They need to buy out Leal, who’s got talent but has never stayed healthy, and replace him well.
- They need two new U22 signings (joining d-mid Pat Yazbek, who arrived in August and has shown promise), and Callaghan’s got to show the ability to develop them into difference-makers right away.
Nashville’s chances of high-level success (or even “moderate improvement”) over the next 24 months land squarely on Jacobs’ talent identification and Callaghan’s player development. That is virtually the entire story.
