Nashville SC will try to extend their home unbeaten run in MLS to nine matches on Saturday night against a Toronto FC side coming off arguably their best performance of the season.
After a narrow 2-1 defeat at Inter Miami last Saturday, third-place Nashville (13-5-5, 44 points) responded with a decisive 3-0 home win over fourth-place Columbus to restore a three-point advantage over its Ohio foes in the Eastern Conference standings.
Sam Surridge scored his 17th goal to regain the MLS lead from Miami’s Lionel Messi, and Hany Mukhtar added his 11th.
Defender Andy Najar continued his exceptional season as a provider from the back line, providing the secondary assist on both goals to bring his season total to 10.
“For us to grow as a group and grow as a team, we’re going to have to find different ways (to score) when the game needs it,” Nashville manager B.J. Callaghan said postgame. “And somebody like Andy I think provides that. He can play a 60-yard outlet ball, or he can dribble inside, or he can slip a ball in behind. For us, it just makes us a little bit more dynamic, a little more versatile. And I think it makes it hard to kind of key in on one guy.”
Nashville is 6-0-2 during his home undefeated stretch in league play.
Najar’s influence could be required again against Toronto FC (5-11-6, 21 points), who are likely to be defensive-minded as they continue life without Italian stars Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi.
Both wide attackers had their contracts with Toronto terminated by mutual consent at the beginning of the month, leaving the 12th-place Reds with an obvious deficit of attacking threat and likely looking at a longer-term rebuild.
But TFC earned an impressive result Wednesday night with a 1-0 victory over Western Conference-leading San Diego FC, in which they took an early lead through Theo Corbeanu’s penalty kick in the 20th minute and held the hosts to one shot on target.
“I thought (Wednesday) was a really good performance, a really disciplined performance,” manager Robin Fraser said postgame. “And for us, this kind of is how we have to be. We have to work, we have to work together, we have to work as a team. And when we do, we can get some results.”
–Field Level Media
