NASHVILLE - Nashville SC turns its attention to Major League Soccer Decision Day presented by AT&T on Sunday after dropping a tough home contest 1-0 to FC Dallas on Wednesday night.
The Boys in Gold are set to take on Orlando City SC on the road at 2:30 p.m. CT. Nashville is still in play to earn the sixth seed and bypass the play-in round, but will need some help from other teams in order to get there. If that help doesn’t come, Nashville can finish no lower than eighth place, guaranteeing a home play-in round match.
“Tonight’s effort and the way the guys went about this fixture shows you that they were fighting tooth and nail for that sixth spot, but getting beat tonight certainly puts a dent in that,” Head Coach Gary Smith said after the match. “I know that New England has a very tough game as do we, and so do the New York Red Bulls on the other side of the chase for that. We have not lost hope. We certainly know that it is a much tougher challenge, but more importantly I think leaving here after today’s game, the next time we are here may well be when we are in the playoffs. If we can’t get a win tonight, which we certainly fought hard for, I wanted the guys to leave here having achieved some things that I think have gone away after the last couple of games.”
Despite the result, midfielder Aníbal Godoy had a strong showing on the night. He made 10 recoveries, five interceptions, two tackles and one key pass, helping Nashville retain possession and climb back into the match. Godoy said he was proud of the team’s effort.
“It’s disappointing when you lose at home,” Godoy said. “The effort from the team was great. I think we always try to fight and we always go into a game wanting to win. We don’t want to lose, and we don’t want to tie, but football is like this sometimes. They only had one or two shots and they scored. I thought we controlled the game more in the second half and we tried to control the ball. We controlled the ball from side to side and made good passes, but we need to do better in finishing the action. Sometimes when the game is close like this, we need to score on the chances we have. We need to continue to fight because we have another match on Sunday, and if we want to stay in the top six, we need to win in Orlando.”
After conceding the lone goal of the match in the first half, Nashville SC put the pressure on in the second half, taking nine shots during the final 45 minutes. Smith says he hopes the second half performance can provide a platform to build from going into the final match of the regular season.
“I think we can see from the stats in the second half that the attitude and the spirit of the team gave us real impetus,” Smith said. “I thought there were some very good passages of play. In terms of our front foot and aggressive approach, we were in a much better place. I think we fell down in the final third. It was always going to be a concern with limited attacking players and of course the quick turn around and nature of the schedule. Very disappointed but certainly not disheartened with the way that this side has played. In fact I think we’ve come out of this with a number of positives that we can certainly take towards what will be our next game and a playoff game.”
