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How Nashville SC brought home the city's first professional league trophy

Nashville SC head coach B.J. Callaghan. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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How Nashville SC brought home the city's first professional league trophy

By Alyssa Clang | Last updated Oct 26, 2026 2:10 PM ET

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Nashville SC won the 2026 Major League Soccer Supporters' Shield — the annual award for the team with the best league record — on Saturday, Oct. 24 with its 2-0 win over CF Montréal.

This is Nashville SC's first Supporters' Shield, but it's also the city of Nashville's first league-based professional sports championship (and second trophy period after Nashville SC took home the U.S. Open Cup in 2025.) The city's other two franchises, the NFL's Tennessee Titans and the NHL's Nashville Predators, have yet to win a championship in their respective leagues.

The Supporters' Shield is one of MLS' marquee trophies. It carries the same weight as the MLS Cup — the trophy given to the team that wins the postseason playoff tournament — and winning it speaks volumes about a team's consistency, talent and grit.

Winning the Supporters' Shield puts Nashville in the driving seat for the MLS postseason. Here, told through key results throughout the season, is the story of how Nashville pulled it off:

March 21: Nashville 5-0 Orlando City

Nashville started the 2026 MLS season in style: It pulled three wins and one draw from its opening four league games. But it was this bravura performance on Matchday 5 that made the rest of the league sit up and take notice: a cool, collected hammering of its Eastern Conference rival Orlando City.

English striker Sam Surridge got a hat trick in this match, and his importance to this 2026 Nashville team cannot be overstated. His combination play with former MLS MVP Hany Mukhtar and new arrival Cristian Espinoza is what lifted Nashville's attack above its peer group in the Eastern Conference. Surridge is a truly intelligent goalscorer — selfless as a baseline but selfish when it counts — and this game was where he truly broke through.

@foxsoccer Sam Surridge with a DOMINANT performance for @Nashville SC #nashvillesc #mls #hattrick #samsurridge #soccertiktok ♬ original sound - FOXSoccer

May 17: Nashville 3-2 LAFC

Surridge dealt with some serious injuries throughout Nashville's season, though, and his absence forced coach B.J. Callaghan to improvise. He leveraged Mukhtar as a playmaker and striker all in one against perpetual title challenger LAFC ... and Mukhtar delivered upon Callaghan's asks. He scored a hat trick of his own in this one that earned Nashville a crucial three points against one of the most defensively solid teams in the league.

"I’m really proud of him because you need your captain and your Designated Players to step up in the biggest games," Callaghan said after the match.

"This is a guy who is playing almost every minute of every game, and for him to come up and put up a Man-of-the-Match performance on the field tonight was exactly what the team needed."

@mls that’s a bad man #mls #soccer #mvp #hattrick #freekick ♬ original sound - Major League Soccer

August 15: Nashville 4-1 Inter Miami

This result — an utter dismantling of Lionel Messi's rampant Miami side — speaks for itself, but it speaks louder with a little context. Nashville and Miami have seen a lot of each other over the past year. They played each other four times in a row at the end of the 2025 season (the final day of regular play followed a best-of-three series in the opening round of the playoffs) and Miami destroyed Nashville across all of them. The aggregate score over all four games? Miami 14, Nashville 4. Ouch.

It meant something, then, for Nashville to pull itself together and give Miami a taste of its own medicine in 2026. This performance was as cathartic as it was cutting: a full-hearted display of everything that makes this Nashville side great, from its surprisingly solid goalkeeping (shout-out to keeper Brian Schwake, whose work with Nashville earned him two caps with the U.S. Men's National Team this fall) to its freewheeling attack.

@mls @Nashville SC put on a show against Inter Miami #mls #soccer #nashville #intermiami ♬ original sound - Major League Soccer

Nashville will return to MLS action on Wednesday, Oct. 28 against the Philadelphia Union. It has already clinched the top seed in the MLS Playoffs and will be a favorite to win the 2026 MLS Cup.

Alyssa Clang

Alyssa is a Boston-born Californian with a passion for global sport. She can yell about misplaced soccer passes in five languages and rattle off the turns of Silverstone in her sleep. You can find her dormant Twitter account at @alyssaclang, but honestly, you’re probably better off finding her here

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