Match Preview - Nashville SC
Game Info
Kickoff: 7:40pm CT
Watch: Apple TV
Location: Q2 Stadium - Austin, TX
All-Time H2H Record
Austin FC has a 1W-1D-3L all-time record against Nashville SC.
These two teams met twice in 2022 in the heat of the MVP race between Sebastián Driussi and Hany Mukhtar, when Nashville was a member of the Western Conference. Nashville won the home leg of that season series 3-0 before earning a point at Q2 Stadium two weeks later in a 1-1 draw.
Austin’s lone win in this all-time series came in August of 2024, a 2-0 road victory with goals from Jon Gallagher and Osman Bukari.
Of course, the last time these two teams met was in the U.S. Open Cup Final in 2025, a match that ended with a controversial penalty call leading to a 2-1 victory for Nashville.
Nashville SC Recent Form
After playing their first two competitive seasons at the USL Championship level, Nashville SC entered MLS play in 2020. Now, my very unscientific hypothesis is that their one-year head start on Austin FC in MLS play sent these two franchises on similar-but-opposite trajectories over the last six years.
Nashville has made the postseason in five of its six MLS seasons (and have already clinched a sixth this season), while ATX has made the playoffs just twice in its first five. Nashville had the league MVP in 2022 with Hany Mukhtar, who finished just above Austin’s Sebastián Driussi in the vote that season. Nashville were the runners up in the 2023 Leagues Cup and then won the 2025 U.S. Open Cup last October, of course besting Austin FC in that match. And in their two trips to the CONCACAF Champion’s Cup they were not embarrassed by a tiny team from Haiti. In fact, they even made it to the semifinals this year before being eliminated by Tigres.
Is the key to success as a mid-sized MLS market in the 2020’s as simple as starting one year prior to when we did? Probably not, but we also can’t say with a certainty that it wasn’t!
Like we talked about on Wednesday’s Episode 340, Nashville made a handful of key off season acquisitions that paved the way for their current standing as the Supporter’s Shield leaders with a ten point buffer on the entire league. They jettisoned big names like Gaston Brugman and Walker Zimmerman, along with moving on from attacking players like Jacob Shaffelburg and Jonathan Perez.
They didn’t just replace those talents however, they upgraded. Nashville inked a contract with 25-year-old Ghanaian centerback Maxwell Woledzi, who has paired with Jession Palacios to form the best central defensive tandem in MLS. They also negotiated a trade with Seattle to bring in fullback Reed Baker-Whiting. But their most important and truly league-shifting signing was acquiring Cristian Espinoza as a free agent after San Jose forgot to pick up the right winger’s contract option last summer. You read that right. Wild stuff.
Espinoza has fit in seamlessly to the Nashville attack alongside the legendary Mukhtar and dominant Sam Surridge, the latter of whom finished second in the golden boot race last season to Lionel Messi and has scored another 16 goals in his 21 appearances this season. While Mukhtar is the club’s all-time leading scorer with 106 goals (and 67 assists) in his 206 career appearances for Nashville, Surridge is already second on that list with 69 goals in just 115 appearances, a 0.6 goals per game pace.
This team is two-deep at nearly every position and they added to their attack in the summer window, bringing in winger Elias Saad on loan from Augsburg through the 2027 Sprint Season. Saad, who appeared in this summer’s FIFA World Cup with Tunisia, already has five assists in just over 600 minutes for the club. Nashville will also welcome back 22-year-old forward Warren Madrigal this weekend from an 11-game absence after picking up a lower body injury in Leagues Cup.
Comparing these teams on paper is, predictably, not fun for fans of the Verde and Black. Nashville is third in goals per game, but first in goals conceded. Given that, it’s not shocking that they’re first in the league in clean sheets with 11.
However, if you’re going to make the case for Austin FC in this spot, it’s going to come from digging a bit deeper into those stats. Despite those goal numbers I cited, Nashville is just 18th in MLS in expected goals (xG). They’re also sixth in expected goals against (xGA), leading to a +19 in FotMob’s expected points (xPTS) table. According to that metric, Nashville “should” be tied for seventh in the Shield table with the likes of LAFC and FC Dallas.
But good god am I happy that we don’t use the xPTS for the actual table. I assume with my reaction you can figure out which MLS team is in last place in that metric, so I’ll just leave it there.
No matter how you look at this one, Nashville are the rightful favorites coming into this match.
Austin FC Recent Form
As Austin FC and their fans know, especially after upsetting the Vancouver Whitecaps (who remain first place in the Western Conference) on the road last month, the game is not played on a spreadsheet. Sometimes ball go in!
Unfortunately for ATX, that hasn’t happened nearly enough this season. It has however happened enough of late to keep the team mathematically alive for postseason action. And tons of credit needs to be given to the remaining players and interim head coach Davy Arnaud for the season not being pronounced dead to this point.
After the summer reset of the front office, coaching staff and key portions of the roster, things were dicey coming out of the World Cup break, as Austin beat Seattle at home only to turn around and get walloped on the road by Houston and Colorado. Since then, the team advanced to the knockout stage of Leagues Cup (losing to eventual champion Toluca) and has built up a club-record unbeaten streak in league play that currently sits at eight games. To do so considering the circumstances surrounding this team is a promising sight as they’ve continued to find results through injury, suspensions and a jumbo-sized international break.
The more positive vibes surrounding the play on the pitch of late may be coming to an end this week, as Austin FC sandwiches an away day at LAFC in the midweek with matchups against the top teams in each conference over an eight day span.
ATX will see the return of a few key players to the lineup this Saturday. DP forward Myrto Uzuni will be available after missing the previous match against San Diego FC due to the international break, and defender Guilhermo Biro will return from a two-game absence due to a red card and yellow card accumulation dating back to the upset win over Vancouver on September 13. Fullback Joseph Rosales will remain out however following his call-up to his native Honduras due to his yellow card accumulation suspension and Arnaud confirmed that Žan Kolmanič will be out for the foreseeable future with a hamstring injury suffered against San Diego. Austin’s interim did also state that Przemysław Płacheta will be available for selection after missing two games with a lower body injury.
The Verde and Black have their work cut out for them in this game. While the results have been positive over the last six weeks all things considered, Austin still has the second worst xG differential in MLS since the return from the World Cup break. That points to both good finishing by Austin’s attacking players and the typical stand out play of goalkeeper Brad Stuver, who will also be a sight for sore eyes on Saturday after missing the San Diego match due to illness.
Austin will need to continue to over perform to emerge from the coming week with any sort of semi-realistic shot at a wild card berth. Being well prepared and in-tune to the game plan on the defensive side of the ball is of utmost importance against an attack like Nashville’s. Any opportunity to run at a disorganized Austin back line will be advantage visitors. Of course, Austin will have to score to earn three points, and trying to do so on a Nashville defense that is allowing fewer than one goal per game is much easier said that done.
One thing I mentioned on the show a few weeks back is that the team would need Brandon Vazquez to find his scoring form alongside fellow “superman” Christian Ramirez for ATX to have enough attacking power to do so. Of course, my esteemed co-host Estradamus helped bring the Vazquez goal drought to an end by evaluating all scenarios at the intersection of space and time. But that wuju conjured up by E isn’t an infinite well of prosperity (otherwise, Austin FC would be doing much better), so hopefully Vazquez has a renewed confidence when he steps on the pitch this Saturday. He’s likely to get his chances and finishing one off for the second straight match would go a long way for Austin’s hopes not only in this game, but for their outlook over the remaining six matches on the 2026 schedule.
Injury Report
ATX:
Žan Kolmanič (Out - Hamstring)
Joseph Rosales (Out - Yellow Card Accumulation Suspension)
NSH:
Owen Presthus (Out - Lower Body)
Nashville SC Players to Watch
Hany Mukhtar - Currently 16th on the MLS all-time goal scoring list, Mukhtar will go down as one of of the best to every play in this league when his career is all said and done. Nashville’s captain will turn 32 in March, but he’s kept up his all-star level form, recording 30 goal contributions in 34 appearances last season and adding another 20 this season across 27 appearances. Mukhtar, the 2022 MLS MVP, is on set pieces and corners for this team along with Cristian Espinoza.
Sam Surridge - The 28-year-old striker spent his first seven professional seasons in the English football pyramid, with experience from League Two all the way up to the Premier League. He’s hit new highs in MLS with Nashville over the last three and a half seasons, recording 69 goals in his 115 appearances. Surridge’s 16 goals this season have him tied for fourth in the golden boot race after finishing as the runner up to Lionel Messi last season, but his 0.88 goals per 90 minutes put him essentially on par with Messi (0.9) in 2026. He’s going to be a focal point of Austin’s defensive game plan and I assume we will see Oleksandr Svatok deployed as the designated “Surridge-stopper”.
Austin FC Keys to the Game
Block Out The Noise - Not only is Austin FC “not supposed to win” this game, they’re not even supposed to be in this position. Somehow, this ragtag group that remains following the busy summer transfer window has put together a club-record unbeaten streak. Incredibly, even a stretch like that still has the team in just 13th place in the Western Conference and five points back of the wild card line. But as unlikely as a wild card berth is, like defender Jon Bell said at Thursday’s media availability, there’s no “E” next to Austin FC in the table yet. As long as there’s a chance, this team is going to keep fighting. Anyone who has been watching this team over the last two months knows it to be true. Austin FC as it exists today is outmatched on paper in the majority of matches, but they are clearly able to block out the noise (like from some idiot on a podcast who says they’re going to lose this game 3-1) and battle tooth and nail to the final whistle. It’s been serving them well of late, so continue to block out that noise and go surprise the MLS world again with a result against the best team in the league on Saturday.
Predictions
ZG - 3-1 Nashville SC
E - 2-1 Austin FC
