Nashville SC vs. Tigres UANL
Concacaf Champions Cup | Semifinals
Tuesday, Apr. 28 | 7:30 p.m.
GEODIS Park | Nashville, TN
Concacaf Champions Cup Semifinal
Tuesday, April 28 at GEODIS Park | 7:30 p.m.
Nashville SC faces Tigres in the Champions Cup semifinal.
Broadcast Details
Watch | FS1, TUDN, OneSoccer, ConcacafGO
Nashville SC returns to Concacaf Champions Cup play Tuesday night on the back of a four-game win streak, looking to gain an advantage in the first leg of its semifinal bout with Liga MX side Tigres UANL. The Boys in Gold are undefeated in the competition through six matches, having already taken down reigning MLS Cup champion Inter Miami and joint-record-cup-winners Club América.
Key Storylines
A new test
Nashville’s semifinal and quarterfinal opponents share a multitude of similarities. Both sides are enduring difficult domestic seasons but have thrived in the Champions Cup, which they have each won once in the last 10 years. Both beat an MLS club which won a trophy in 2025 before playing Nashville. Should the Boys in Gold hope to progress, they will need to overcome — again — their opponent’s home ground in the second leg. But the comparisons stop there. Tigres is a much more lethal offensive outlet than América, and indeed one of the toughest defensive assignments Nashville will face this season, let alone this tournament.
Tigres is one of the few clubs which can rival the Boys in Gold for diversity in its goalscoring in 2026. The 2020 champions have had six different players score across six Champions Cup games this season and eight who have logged assists, amassing 11 goals along the way. Uruguayan forward Rodrigo Aguirre leads the way with four goals and one assist to his name, with Mexican Ozziel Herrera and Brazilian defender Joaquim contributing three and two goals, respectively. That’s not to mention former European standouts Diego Lainez (two assists) and Ángel Correa (one goal), or former French international forward and longtime Tigres stalwart André-Pierre Gignac. Nashville, meanwhile, has staked its identity this tournament on a defense which has conceded just once.
As far as this tournament goes, no two sides have had more contrasting paths to the semifinal. Nashville has suffocated its foes to grind out results. Tigres has twice found its way through barnburners, winning 5-4 on aggregate against FC Cincinnati and 3-3 on away goals against Seattle Sounders. The Boys in Gold have more than enough firepower to cause Tigres problems — they scored four times over the weekend — but their chances of advancing will once again rest on how tall their back line stands. No side across any competition has led Nashville at GEODIS Park this season and none in the Champions Cup have scored. Tuesday’s result will rest on whether Tigres can buck that trend.
The tournament’s most underrated duo?
The Boys in Gold have many avenues through which they can hurt other teams. Sam Surridge and Hany Mukhtar have become perhaps the best one-two punch in MLS throughout their three shared years in Music City. Ahmed Qasem provided a vital goal and assist in Saturday’s win against Charlotte. Both Patrick Yazbek and Eddi Tagseth have hit the score sheet in 2026 and have logged four combined assists. But perhaps no two players on Nashville’s roster have been more vital to their flying start to the MLS season and Champions Cup journey than Cristian Espinoza and Andy Najar, responsible for arguably the best right flank of any team in North America.
Espinoza’s impact has been louder: the decisive goal to send Nashville past Inter Miami in the Round of 16; the assist for Mukhtar’s final-minute winner at Columbus; the assist for Mukhtar’s winner against América. But Najar has been just as impressive, racking up four assists of his own through MLS play, including a pair at the weekend. Their quality bears out in the stat books, too: Najar and Espinoza are in the 98th and 92nd percentile for touches and 73rd and 99th percentile for chances created among other wingers and fullbacks in similar leagues, respectively, per 90 minutes, according to FotMob.
With Surridge back from injury and Mukhtar playing at the peak of his powers, the Boys in Gold have two attackers more than capable of seizing control of Tuesday’s match and the semifinal at large. But just to their right are two players with the creativity and quality to serve chances on a silver platter, no matter how tough the opposition. Even the most complex locks can be undone by a talented lockpicker, and Nashville has two of the best.
Series History & What’s Next
Tuesday marks the first meeting between Nashville and Tigres, as well as the Boys in Gold’s first-ever Champions Cup semifinal appearance. Nashville has lost just once in the five previous matches it has played against Mexican clubs, a 4-3 defeat to Toluca in the 2023 Leagues Cup group stage, with triumphs against Club América (twice) and Monterrey.
Upon the conclusion of Tuesday’s match, the Boys in Gold hit the road for an MLS clash at Philadelphia Union on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
