In Nashville SC’s first October meeting with Inter Miami CF, the Boys in Gold stuck with their formula for success this season, playing an aggressive, offensive-minded game.
The result was a multiplicity of scoring chances for the Boys in Gold, but too many wasted opportunities in a 5-2 loss to the Herons to close the regular season.
In the teams’ second October meeting, the opening leg of a first-round MLS playoff series, Nashville took a more defensive-minded approach, seeking to limit the time and space of Lionel Messi and his skilled teammates.
The result was fewer offensive chances for Miami, but also too few for Nashville, which led to a 3-1 defeat and a 1-0 playoff deficit.
Is there a third option for NSC, as it seeks to avoid playoff elimination at the hands of the Herons on Saturday at Geodis Park (6:30 p.m. CT)?
NSC coach B.J. Callaghan didn’t disclose whether he would revert back to the 4-2-2-2 formation the team used for most of the regular season or whether it would stick with the 4-3-3 that Nashville employed in Game 1 of this series.
But either way, he’d like to see the Boys in Gold incorporate the scoring opportunities they produced in the regular season finale — when the team could easily have scored four goals — and the more disciplined show of defense they mustered in the playoff opener.
“We’re trying to neutralize their attack as much as possible and also find moments where we can create goal-scoring opportunities, whether that’s through turning them over and offensive transition, or if it’s through a hard buildup and exploiting spaces,” Callaghan said.
“I think in both games, we created those [scoring] opportunities, but in the first game [didn’t finish] offensively, not as much as we wanted. That’s an area we’ve been focused on and have to improve and execute better.”
Nashville will be battling against history in Saturday’s contest.
The Boys in Gold are winless (0-8-2) in their last 10 meetings across all competitions against Miami, a streak that dates back to May 2023, two months before Messi began playing for the team.
But all streaks eventually come to an end, right?
“We’re not going to go a whole club life without beating them,” Nashville midfielder Patrick Yazbek said. “So why not [Saturday], and why not again in a week’s time?
“Obviously it’s going to be a challenge and we’re up for it. But if we go in with the mindset that ‘Why not [Saturday],’ it’s going to put us in a positive mindset and give us every opportunity mentally to go into the game with positive aspirations.”
Nashville will lean on the support of the Geodis crowd, as the Boys in Gold went 11-3-3 in MLS play at home this season.
But the gold-clad faithful won’t be able to set foot on the pitch, which means NSC needs to find its own way to contain Messi, the eight-time winner of the Ballon d’Or award as the world’s best player.
The 5-foot-7, 148-pound Argentine native has pillaged Nashville over the past two years, totaling 12 goals and two assists in eight contests — including seven goals and two assists in three games this season.
Maybe, Yazbek said, it’s about time Nashville stopped showing quite so much respect for Messi and his world-class teammates like Luis Suarez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba among others.
“Sometimes when you’re a bit cautious, that can do a lot of harm to you in the [penalty] box,” Yazbek said. “You give them too much respect, and probably more time than what they deserve.
“So I think [Saturday], we just have to be a lot tighter, a lot more aggressive around the runs in the box. And when it comes down to individual battles, making sure we’re winning those.”
