 | ||||
| Full name | Nashville Soccer Club | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicknames | Coyotes[1] Boys in Gold[2] | |||
| Founded | May 19, 2016; 9 years ago (2016-05-19)[a] | |||
| Stadium | Geodis Park Nashville, Tennessee | |||
| Capacity | 30,000 | |||
| Owners | List
| |||
| CEO | Ian Ayre | |||
| Head coach | B. J. Callaghan | |||
| League | Major League Soccer | |||
| 2025 | Eastern Conference: 6th Overall: 11th Playoffs: First round | |||
| Website | nashvillesc.com | |||
 Current season | ||||
Nashville Soccer Club is an American professionalsoccer club based inNashville, Tennessee. The club competes inMajor League Soccer (MLS) as a member of theEastern Conference. The team spent two seasons in theUSL Championship before joining MLS as an expansion team. The club plays its home matches atGeodis Park, the largestsoccer-specific stadium in the United States. It is principally owned byJohn Ingram, owner ofIngram Industries, along with investors and partial owners the Turner family ofDollar General Stores.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion with: updated history and additional citations. You can help byadding to it. Relevant discussion may be found onTemplate talk:Expand section.(June 2024) |
Prior to the arrival of Nashville's MLS team, the city had various soccer teams which played in the lower divisions of American soccer. The most notable teams were theNashville Metros who played from 1989 until 2012 andNashville FC, who played in theNational Premier Soccer League (NPSL) from 2013 to 2016. The city also hosts twoNCAA Division Imen's soccer teams, theBelmont Bruins andLipscomb Bisons. TheVanderbilt Commodores also played Division I men's soccer until the team's demise after the 2005 season. Prior to these teams, theNashville Diamonds participated in the then-second divisionAmerican Soccer League for one season in 1982.[8]
The NPSL team, Nashville FC, was founded by a supporters group that intended to form a team as a fan-owned group. Chris Jones, Nashville FC's president, cited existingfan-owned clubs as inspiration for NFC's foundation, in particular the English clubF.C. United of Manchester.[9] In February 2014, the two groups merged to form a single club for the2014 NPSL season. The club had two teams participating in the Middle Tennessee Soccer Alliance, Nashville's largest competitive adult league, and had partnered with the Tennessee State Soccer Association (TSSA), an organization with over 20,000 registered players in theMiddle Tennessee area alone.[10] The team played its matches atVanderbilt Stadium.[11] The NPSL club had ambitions of climbing theAmerican soccer pyramid, with the reported target an entry into the then third-tierUnited Soccer League (USL; now known as the USL Championship) by 2017,[12] and then ascension into the Division IINorth American Soccer League by 2020.[9]
Nashville SC was founded in 2016, when the USL awarded a franchise to the founding ownership group of the club. An existing team at the time,Nashville FC subsequently sold its team name, logo, and color scheme to then new USL franchise, in exchange for a 1 percent equity stake in the USL team and a voting seat on its board.[13][14]In August 2016, a group of Nashville business leaders led byBill Hagerty formed the Nashville MLS Organizing Committee and began efforts to secure funding for an MLS stadium.[15]The group fully supported the recently awarded Nashville SC, which began play in 2018. Both groups supported each other in their common vision to grow the sport in Tennessee.[16] Former2010 MLS Cup winning coachGary Smith was announced as the team's first manager in April 2017.[17][18]
In October 2017, the group unveiled their plans for a $275 million stadium and redevelopment project,[19][20] which was approved by the city in November.[21]
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The formal bid to add an MLS franchise to Nashville began in January 2017. On March 4, 2017, businessmanJohn Ingram, under the entity Nashville Holdings LLC, bought a majority stake in DMD Soccer, the ownership group of Nashville SC.[22] Ingram also headed up the bid to bring an MLS franchise to Nashville,[23] and the partnership between Ingram and Nashville SC was an effort to present a united front to MLS after Nashville was named one of ten finalist cities for four MLS franchises.[24]
MLS officially awarded an expansion team to Nashville on December 20, 2017, and announced that they would join the league in 2020.[25] Mike Jacobs andIan Ayre was announced as the Nashville's first general manager and CEO respectively.[26]
On February 10, 2018, Nashville SC competed in their first game; in preseason againstAtlanta United FC.[27] In the rain-soaked contest, Nashville was defeated by Atlanta, 3–1, in front of 9,059 spectators.[28]
Nashville SC finished 4th in the Eastern Conference in their first season in the USL Championship. The team advanced to the Conference Semifinals in the playoffs, where they were defeated by Indy Eleven. In 2019, the final season in USL Championship, Nashville finished 2nd in the Eastern Conference regular season and advanced to the Conference Semifinals, losing to Indy Eleven 1-0 in front of 4,174 fans at First Horizon Park.
Nashville SC's inaugural MLS match was February 29, 2020, with the club hostingAtlanta United FC atNissan Stadium.[29] The game was played in front of 59,069, becoming the highest attended soccer event in Tennessee.[30]Walker Zimmerman scored the team's first goal in the 2–1 loss.[31] The inaugural season came to a halt on March 12, 2020, after only two games when the MLS suspended the season for thirty days due to theCOVID-19 pandemic,[32] then extended to until May 10, 2020. On June 10, MLS announcedMLS is Back Tournament, but Nashville were unable to participate in the tournament due to multiple COVID cases on the team. Their next game was an August 12 win againstFC Dallas. Nashville SC finished the 2020 regular season 8–8–7 with 32 points. They entered the MLS Cup playoffs in the play-in round defeatingInter Miami 3–0 and knocking offToronto FC 1–0 in the first round, before being defeated by the eventual championsColumbus Crew in the conference semi-finals in extra time.[33] The 2021 season saw Nashville perform well defensively, only allowing a tied for league-leading 33 goals and going undefeated at home.[34][35] The 2021 team would also tie a league record for draws in a season at 18. Nashville returned to the playoffs, but was again eliminated in the conference semi-finals, this time byPhiladelphia Union in a penalty shootout.[36] 2022 saw both the opening ofGeodis Park andHany Mukhtar winning both theLandon Donovan MVP andGolden Boot awards after being a finalist for the former in the previous season.[37] Mukhtar led the league with 34 goal contributions, nearly two thirds of Nashville's goals in 2022 and leading the team to a third consecutive playoff berth.[38][39] Despite Mukhtar's success the club was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by theLA Galaxy.[40] The 2023 season saw a similar record to 2022, winning 13 matches in the regular season, then getting eliminated in the first round again, this time byOrlando City. Although, 2023 saw the inauguralLeague's Cup, a competition between the MLS andLiga MX. Nashville made a historic run to the final of that tournament, eliminatingFC Cincinnati,Club America,Minnesota United,C.F. Monterrey, before facing the newly signedLionel Messi andInter Miami in the final, losing in the 11th round of penalties in a sold-out Geodis Park.[41] During the cup, Nashville brought inSam Surridge, an English striker fromNottingham Forest, who made an immediate impact scoring the equalizing goal against Club America to send the game into penalties.[42] Surridge is now 2nd in NSC history in goals scored. 2024 saw a disappointing year, only winning 9 matches, finishing 13th in the east, and missing the playoffs. NSC was eliminated from theCONCACAF Champions Cup in the 2nd round byInter Miami and did not make it out of the group stage of the League's Cup. After starting with a record of 3 wins, 4 losses, and 5 draws, Nashville SC fired their first manager Gary Smith. Rumba Munthali took over as an interim until July 3, when Nashville hiredB.J. Callaghan as their next coach. 2025 started off great for the Boys in Gold, holding onto one of the longest unbeaten streaks across all competitions in MLS history, spanning 15 matches from April 26 to July 12. With the new cup competition format for the MLS, Nashville SC could only participate in theU.S. Open Cup in 2025.[43] NSC went on to win the2025 U.S. Open Cup, beatingAustin F.C. in the final. The match was played atQ2 Stadium, resulting in 2-1 contest with goals fromHany Mukhtar andSam Surridge.[44] This championship marks the first major professional sports championship in Tennessee history. The 2025 season ended with a club-best 16 wins on 58 goals scored, but the curse ofInter Miami CF continued to haunt NSC as they lost in 3 games of the first round of the 2025 MLS Playoffs.[45]
The first logo of Nashville SC, originally carried over the same blue and yellow colors, of the previous Nashville FC logo. Due to trademark issues, the team revealed a different logo and change to their name, being Nashville SC. The center of the updated white and blue circular logo, featured a yellow stylized N crossed under six stripes, to emulate guitar strings with the letters "SC" included in the circle.[46]
Nashville SC's primary colors areelectric gold andacoustic blue, referencing the colors ofNashville's flag. The club's crest is a gold octagon with a monogram "N" and several vertical bars in blue. The vertical bars were chosen to represent sound waves and vibrations, referencing the city's musical history.[47][4][48]
| Period | Kit manufacturer | Shirt sponsor | Sleeve sponsor | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018–2019 | Under Armour | Nissan | — | [49] |
| 2020–present | Adidas | Renasant Bank | Hyundai | [50] |
Nashville SC's original organized supporter group is The Roadies. Established in February 2014 with the creation of Nashville FC, the city's NPSL amateur franchise with the club's transition from NPSL amateur to USL pro status and finally MLS, The Roadies similarly transitioned to maintain their support for "Our Town, Our Club".[51]
The team plays at the 30,000 seatGeodis Park, the largestsoccer-specific stadium in theUnited States.[52][53] The $275 million stadium was mostly funded by revenue bonds from the Nashville government, per an agreement with theNashville Metro Council that was approved in November 2017.[54] The council approved the stadium on September 4, 2018, in front of an audience with mixed opinions on the project, with the votes 31-yes and 8-no. A proposal to submit the plan to areferendum based on Metro government's "partial funding" was rejected by the council, with the votes 25-yes (to reject the referendum) and 12-no (to permit).[55]
In January 2019,John Rose, a U.S. representative fromCookeville led the nonprofit that operates the Tennessee State Fair to sue the team to halt construction, citing that the stadium would not leave adequate space required for the functions of the fair.[56] However, in February of the same year, Rose and the nonprofit dismissed the lawsuit citing that city officials would not meet with the nonprofit while this suit was pending.[57] Demolition on the Fairgrounds site began in March 2020.[58]
The agreement of the stadium and its funding details was amended on February 13, 2020, with the help of Nashville MayorJohn Cooper to make the stadium 100 percent privately funded with the team will also funding $19 million of infrastructure improvements in the immediate area.[59]
Nashville, during the USL era primarily played atFirst Tennessee Park before switching toNissan Stadium for their first two seasons in MLS. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were limited seating capacity in their tenure while using Nissan Stadium.
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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| Technical Staff | |
|---|---|
| Head coach | B.J. Callaghan |
| Assistant coach | John Bello |
| Assistant coach | Michael Nsien |
| Goalkeeping coach | Danny Cepero |
| General manager | Mike Jacobs |
| Assistant general manager | Oliver Miller-Farrell |
| Chief scout | Luke Sassano |
| Season | League | Position | Playoffs | USOC | Continental / Other | Average attendance[b] | Top goalscorer(s)[c] | Ref. | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Div | League | Con | Pld | W | L | D | GF | GA | GD | Pts | PPG | Conf. | Overall | Player(s) | Goals | |||||||
| 2018 | 2 | USL | E | 34 | 12 | 13 | 9 | 42 | 31 | +11 | 49 | 1.44 | 8th | 17th | R1 | Ro16 | DNQ | 9,561 |  Brandon Allen | 9 | [62] | |
| 2019 | USLC | 34 | 20 | 7 | 7 | 59 | 26 | +33 | 67 | 1.97 | 2nd | 3rd | QF | R3 | DNQ | 6,999 |  Daniel Ríos | 21 | [63] | |||
| 2020 | 1 | MLS | E[d] | 23 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 24 | 22 | +2 | 32 | 1.39 | 7th | 14th | QF | NH | MLS is Back Tournament | DNE | 12,925 |  Hany Mukhtar | 5 | [64] |
| 2021 | MLS | 34 | 12 | 4 | 18 | 55 | 33 | +22 | 54 | 1.59 | 3rd | 7th | QF | NH | DNQ | 19,338 | Hany Mukhtar | 19 | [64] | |||
| 2022 | MLS | W | 34 | 13 | 10 | 11 | 52 | 41 | +11 | 50 | 1.47 | 5th | 10th | R1 | QF | DNQ | 27,554 | Hany Mukhtar | 26 ♦ | [64] | ||
| 2023 | MLS | E | 34 | 13 | 11 | 10 | 39 | 32 | +7 | 49 | 1.44 | 7th | 12th | R1 | R16 | Leagues Cup | RU | 28,257[65] | Hany Mukhtar | 17 | [64] | |
| 2024 | MLS | E | 34 | 9 | 16 | 9 | 38 | 54 | –16 | 36 | 1.06 | 13th | 25th | DNQ | DNE | CONCACAF Champions Cup Leagues Cup | R16 GS | 28,599[65] |  Sam Surridge | 12 | [64] | |
| Total | 227 | 87 | 68 | 72 | 309 | 239 | +70 | 337 | 1.48 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Hany Mukhtar | 66 | — | ||||
Statistics include all competitive matches since Nashville SC entered the MLS in 2020. Current players on the club's roster are shown inbold.
| Rank | Name | Nat. | Period | MLS | PO | OC | LC | CCC | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex Muyl | | 2020– | 177 | 10 | 11 | 8 | 4 | 210 |
| 2 | Hany Mukhtar | | 2020– | 179 | 11 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 209 |
| 3 | Joe Willis | | 2020–2025 | 185 | 11 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 205 |
| 4 | Daniel Lovitz | | 2020– | 170 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 3 | 200 |
| 5 | Walker Zimmerman | | 2020–2025 | 147 | 11 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 172 |
| 6 | Jack Maher | | 2020– | 140 | 5 | 11 | 5 | 2 | 163 |
| 7 | Aníbal Godoy |  | 2020–2024 | 111 | 6 | 1 | 9 | 4 | 131 |
| 8 | Brian Anunga |  | 2020–2024 | 109 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 128 |
| 9 | Dax McCarty | | 2020–2023 | 105 | 7 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 121 |
| 10 | Randall Leal |  | 2020–2024 | 105 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 116 |
| Teal Bunbury | | 2022–2025 | 96 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 116 |
| Rank | Name | Nat. | Period | MLS | PO | OC | LC | CCC | Total[e] | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hany Mukhtar | | 2020– | 82 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 94(209) | 0.45 |
| 2 | Sam Surridge | | 2023– | 38 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 51(87) | 0.59 |
| 3 | C. J. Sapong | | 2021–2023 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 18(80) | 0.23 |
| 4 | Randall Leal | | 2020–2024 | 16 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17(116) | 0.15 |
| 5 | Walker Zimmerman | | 2020–2025 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 16(172) | 0.09 |
| 6 | Alex Muyl | | 2020– | 12 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 15(210) | 0.07 |
| 7 | Jacob Shaffelburg |  | 2022– | 11 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 14(106) | 0.13 |
| 8 | Teal Bunbury | | 2022–2025 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 12(116) | 0.10 |
| 9 | Fafà Picault |  | 2023 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 9(39) | 0.23 |
| 10 | Daniel Ríos | | 2020–2021 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6(33) | 0.18 |
Ingram's partners in the soccer club include Minnesota Vikings owners Mark, Zygi and Leonard Wilf, and the Turner Family, managing partners of Nashville-based MarketStreet Enterprises.
The Turners, who led the transformation of the Gulch neighborhood a decade ago, recently signed on as minority owners in the Ingram-led MLS investment group.
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| Eastern Conference | |
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| Western Conference | |
| Former teams |
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| Other | |
 Sports teams based inTennessee | ||
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| Baseball |  | |
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| Hockey | ||
| Roller derby | ||
| Soccer | ||
| College athletics (NCAA Division I) | ||
