Photo: Courtesy of Nashville SC
NASHVILLE – The Boys in Gold returned to its fortress named Geodis Park on Wednesday afternoon for its first home preseason action of the recently-flipped calendar. Nashville played host to USL Championship-side Birmingham Legion FC, squeaking out a 3-2 victory on the back of striker Sam Surridge.
A strong Starting XI greeted the season ticket members in attendance, a group that could very well be Gary Smith’s opening day lineup, minus a couple of obvious names across the backline – Walker Zimmerman and Dan Lovitz were notably absent.
Surridge
Shaffelburg | Mukhtar | Boyd
Godoy | Davis
Washington | MacNaughton | Maher | Moore
Willis
The start marked the first for Mukhtar of the preseason as Zimmerman and Lovitz remain the final two Nashville men of note who have yet to take part in the preseason campaign. The former MVP logged about an hour’s worth of minutes in the contest before being replaced by Dru Yearwood.
At long last, fans breathed a sigh of relief as Nashville’s 6’3″ forward found the scoresheet not only once, but once per half as Sam Surridge bagged one with his head and another with his boot. The first saw service from LB Taylor Washington that, after being reviewed to determine whether the headed attempt breached the line, resulted in the match opener.
Nashville would then concede two goals to go down 1-2 to Birmingham, and fans of Nashville SC dating back to the USL-C days will certainly remember the name of one of the Legion’s goalscorers – Tyler Pasher. The former Indy Eleven man accounted for the lone goal in the 2019 USL Championship Quarter-Final match that closed the curtain on Nashville’s final season in the second-division league before its MLS encore commenced.
Surridge responded with an equalizer to dissolve Birmingham’s brief advantage, an effort that deflected off the opposition and into the net.
A late goal from trialist Julian Gaines secured Nashville’s 3-2 win as the younger brother of another Nashville preseason scorer, McKenzie Gaines, continues to push for a regular season roster spot among several other trialists.
The club’s final preseason match will also take place at Geodis Park on February 15 when Nashville hosts formal USL Championship rivals Memphis 901 FC.
Then, the regular season begins.
| Player | Goals | Assists |
| Jacob Shaffelburg | 2 | – |
| Sam Surridge | 2 | – |
| Tyler Boyd | 1 | 1 |
| McKenzie Gaines | 1 | 1 |
| Forster Ajago | 1 | – |
| Julian Gaines | 1 | – |
| Hany Mukhtar | – | 1 |
| Taylor Washington | – | 1 |
