Nashville SC carry the momentum from winning their first trophy in club history into Saturday’s visit to CF Montreal, the penultimate match of the regular season for both teams.
Resting in relatively safe playoff position, Nashville (16-11-5, 53 points) injected some life into the final stretch of the campaign with a 2-1 win Wednesday over Austin FC to claim the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
A 60th-minute penalty kick off the boot of tournament scoring leader Sam Surridge served as the go-ahead goal. The result booked Nasvhille a spot at the 2026 CONCACAF Champions Cup.
“It’s a big, proud moment for the club, for obviously the team, and this whole city of Nashville,” coach B.J. Callaghan told CBS Sports Network after the match. “This team has been built to represent the city of Nashville, and I think we saw that (Wednesday) with the commitment and absolute team effort.”
Their league form has been a tad spottier of late, with Nashville having lost three of its last four MLS outings. They broke a three-match winless skid on Sept. 27 with a 3-1 win over the Houston Dynamo in which Surridge netted his 22nd league goal of the season.
Long out of playoff contention and lingering near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, CF Montreal (6-17-9, 27 points) are looking to string together their first consecutive league victories of the season.
Montreal managed to snap a three-match winless streak last time out, besting a Charlotte FC side reduced to 10 men for most of the contest by a score of 4-1. Dante Sealy bagged a brace while recent acquisitions Ivan Jaime and Matthew Longstaff each tallied their first goal contributions for their new club.
“It’s been a long season, but you know, we worked very hard and I feel like we deserved something like this,” Sealy said after the match.
Both teams will be missing rotational pieces to international duty at the FIFA U-20 World Cup, Nashville’s Matthew Corcoran with the United States and Montreal’s Hennadii Synchuk representing Ukraine. Montreal defender Efrain Morales remains an injury doubt for the home side after missing the win over Charlotte.
Montreal interim coach Marco Donadel will be suspended for the match due to yellow card accumulation.
–Field Level Media
