Nashville SC vs. Charlotte FC
2026 MLS Regular Season | Matchday 9
Saturday, Apr. 25 | 7:30 p.m. CT
GEODIS Park | Nashville, TN
Broadcast Details
Listen | 104.5 The Zone
After a record-setting week which included three road wins — together with the first-ever by an MLS Club at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca — Nashville SC returns to GEODIS Park Saturday night for a rematch with Charlotte FC. The Boys in Gold lead the Eastern Conference on 19 factors with six wins in eight matches, 5 factors forward of Charlotte in fifth with a sport in hand, and have the chance to climb inside two factors of the Supporters’ Shield lead with a win.
Key Storylines
Nashville’s 2-1 win towards Charlotte two weeks in the past was amongst its most spectacular of the younger season, particularly contemplating its timing. The match was sandwiched between two tense Concacaf Champions Cup quarterfinal legs towards Club América and acted as the primary cease in a three-game road stand. To protect legs, the Boys in Gold selected to relaxation all three of their Designated Players throughout the ahead line and belief that their deputies — Ahmed Qasem, Woobens Pacius and Warren Madrigal — may present sufficient offensive firepower of their stead. Nashville threatened on offense simply as a lot because it has all season, a testomony to the trio’s work fee and high quality, however the breakthrough didn’t come from anybody on its assault. Instead, the midfield offered the distinction.
Eddi Tagseth and Patrick Yazbek’s high quality on the ball, hustle and imaginative and prescient have by no means been questioned. But for all their expertise, the duo had mixed for only one profession purpose in Music City forward of their sport towards Charlotte, when every discovered his approach onto the scoresheet. Tagseth’s opener from properly outdoors the field was maybe the greatest purpose Nashville has scored all season, arrange by Yazbek drawing a pair defenders towards him, whereas Yazbek’s 62nd-minute winner earned him MLS Team of the Matchday honors.
How far Nashville drives this season comes all the way down to the effectivity of its engine room, and it’s been as spectacular as might be thus far. Tagseth, alongside goalkeeper Brian Schwake and center-back Maxwell Woledzi, is one in every of solely three Nashville gamers to begin each MLS sport of the season. Yazbek has been trusted with the beginning in each Champions Cup match from the Round of 16 onwards. That duo holds six purpose contributions to its title coming into Saturday’s rematch. If it will possibly put in even half the shift it did two weeks in the past, the Boys in Gold will fancy their probabilities of a sequence sweep.
A showdown of shot-stoppers
The abundance of attacking expertise on show from each Nashville and Charlotte can distract from one in every of every workforce’s most spectacular traits: their goalkeeping. Few gamers in MLS can compete with the shot-stopping chops of Schwake and Kristijan Kahlina, each of whom have been instrumental to their sides’ high-flying 2026 seasons. The pair of goalies have allowed simply 14 mixed targets by eight matches as their groups sit comfortably within the high echelon of the Eastern Conference.
Kahlina has been one of many league’s greatest keepers since becoming a member of Charlotte in 2022, accumulating 39 clear sheets with a median save share simply over 74%. He earned MLS Team of the Matchday honors, the ninth of his profession, for his seven saves in a 2-1 win at New York City FC over the weekend. But Schwake has been maybe the standout star in web of any workforce throughout this marketing campaign, saving 81% the photographs he’s confronted in MLS whereas logging 4 clear sheets and dropping simply as soon as, the one time he has tasted defeat in his profession as a starter. He additionally had a decisive penalty save within the golf equipment’ earlier matchup, denying Idan Toklomati shortly after Yazbek’s purpose.
As video games on the high of the desk typically are, Saturday’s outcome will doubtless be determined by which facet’s ahead line can produce a little bit of magic. Equally, nonetheless, it would depend upon which workforce can forestall the opposite from discovering these moments, and in Kahlina and Schwake, Charlotte and Nashville possess two of the most effective gamers at doing that. Two unstoppable forces meet two immovable objects; time will inform which provides first.
Series History & What’s Next
After its win within the Queen City, Nashville now owns the leg-up within the all-time competitors towards Charlotte 4-3-1, with the workforce from North Carolina holding a 12-11 lead within the targets ledger. The groups cut up final season’s sequence with 2-1 wins on either side’s home floor, with Hany Mukhtar and Jacob Shaffelburg scoring for the Boys in Gold of their victory at GEODIS Park final May.
Nashville stays home for the primary leg of the Champions Cup semifinals towards Tigres on Tuesday night, slated for 7:30 p.m. CT, earlier than hitting the road as soon as extra at Philadelphia subsequent Saturday.
