Nashville SC look to carry their home success on the road when they travel north of the border to clash with suddenly surging Toronto FC on Saturday in an Eastern Conference match.
Nashville (7-4-3, 24 points) hits the road after a scoreless draw at home with D.C. United on May 17 extended its unbeaten streak to five league games. Goalkeeper Joe Willis needed to make just one save to record his fourth clean sheet in the draw.
“We weren’t clean with the ball,” Nashville coach B.J. Callaghan said. “We missed a few passes, couple balls got blocked. I just think from the beginning to the end we could have probably executed a little better. We were not happy at all with the result.”
Since that draw, the Coyotes defeated Orlando City SC 3-2 on the road on Wednesday in a U.S. Open Cup round of 16 match.
Nashville is 3-0-2 in league play since a 3-0 loss in Seattle on April 19 and have produced just one win (and four overall points) from their five road matches (1-3-1) in MLS action this season. The Coyotes are hoping their victory in central Florida will give them some momentum for the trip to Toronto.
While most of the MLS teams have one primary scoring threat, Nashville has two — Hany Mukhtar (six goals, four assists) and Sam Surridge (six goals, three assists).
The Coyotes won both of last season’s meetings.
Toronto (3-7-4, 13 points) heads home after a dominating 6-1 win at Montreal on May 17 gave the Reds their second win in their past three MLS matches.
Federico Bernardeschi and Theo Corbeanu each scored a brace and Tyrese Spicer and Ola Brynhildsen each added a goal for Toronto, which avenged a shootout loss to Montreal in the Canadian Championship weeks earlier.
The key for Toronto is to use the win over Montreal as a springboard to better overall play after a difficult beginning to the season.
“We’ve enjoyed the result over Montreal but we know we have so much more to do,” Toronto coach Robin Fraser said. “We talk a lot about engagement with this team, and we know that we have to make up for what was not a great start.”
The match on Saturday marks the 600th MLS regular-season contest in Reds’ history.
–Field Level Media
