Nashville SC at Inter Miami CF
Concacaf Champions Cup | Round of 16
Wednesday, March 18 | 6:00 p.m. CT
Inter Miami CF Stadium | Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Broadcast Details
Watch | FS2, Concacaf GO, OneSoccer, TUDN
On the back of a last-gasp 1-0 win against Columbus Crew over the weekend, a still-unbeaten Nashville SC returns to the pitch Wednesday evening for the second leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup Round of 16 against fated Eastern Conference rival Inter Miami. The Boys in Gold and Herons drew 0-0 at GEODIS Park in the first leg a week ago, giving Nashville the chance to advance to the quarterfinals with a win or non-goalless draw in Ft. Lauderdale.
Key Storylines
A blueprint for success
Don’t let the 0-0 scoreline fool you: Nashville dominated Miami in last week’s first leg. The Boys in Gold out-shot the Herons 15-8 and 5-1 on goal, earned seven corners to zero and accumulated 1.19 expected goals to 0.32, forcing a series of tough saves out of Dayne St. Clair to keep the match goalless. Nashville’s hustle and physicality was a key driver of its performance — visibly frustrating the visitors throughout — but so was a change in formula.
Rather than the typical three-man midfield head coach B.J. Callaghan employed for much of 2025, last week’s starting XI featured just two central midfielders backing up a four-man forward line. Patrick Yazbek and Matthew Corcoran excelled in this role with their crunching tackles, heads-up passing and tireless engines, strangling Miami’s midfield and enabling Warren Madrigal and Cristian Espinoza to wreak havoc on the wings. Center back Maxwell Woledzi’s frequent forays forward helped Nashville break the press and kickstart its attacks, while goalkeeper Brian Schwake swept up the pieces from behind. This setup, combined with Nashville’s superb conditioning, exhausted the Herons from the first minute, forcing the rain-soaked game to be played largely on the home side’s terms.
On another day, the Boys in Gold could well have had three or four goals to Miami’s zero. And while a road trip to Florida — one Nashville must score in if it hopes to advance in regulation — is never an easy task, last week showed that this group has the setup to cause Miami problems.
Anchors at the back
Four of Nashville’s back five (including the goalkeeper) remained constant between its three previous MLS games and last week’s first leg. Even so, it was a lineup that could hardly be considered veteran, featuring just two starters from 2025 (Andy Najar and Jeisson Palacios) alongside a pair of offseason additions (Woledzi and Reed Baker-Whiting) and a young shot-stopper (Schwake). Each performed superbly against the toughest test they’ve faced all season, with the trio of youngsters shining particularly bright.
Woledzi was the star of the show, causing roars from the crowd as he muscled down attackers to dispossess them before sitting down defenders as he weaved through midfield. Schwake showed incredible composure with the ball at his feet and produced a sensational close-range stop on Lionel Messi. Baker-Whiting, making just his second start for the club, offered valuable positional size at left back and a physicality Miami winger Tadeo Allende struggled to handle. Nashville’s defense was so good, in fact, that Schwake’s save on Messi was the only shot on target the Herons registered all evening.
Miami is a club defined by its offensive firepower. Few teams in MLS, let alone the Champions Cup, can match the Herons’ options up top and fewer have been able to slow them down. But the fact that Nashville's youth-forward defense found a way last week bodes well for the Boys in Gold’s chances this time round.
Series History + What's Next
Nashville and Miami have been each other’s most frequent foe since joining MLS in 2020, with Wednesday’s meeting the 21st between the clubs in seven years. The Boys in Gold have played the Herons at least once in every knockout competition they’veparticipated in throughout that span, squaring off in the 2023 Leagues Cup and U.S Open Cup, 2024 Champions Cup and 2020 and 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs.
Should Nashville advance on Wednesday — which it would do with a win or a draw where both teams score — it will play the winner of Club América and Philadelphia Union in a two-leg quarterfinal in April. The Boys in Gold return to MLS play on Saturday evening at home against Orlando City.
