​Nashville SC v Chicago Fire: Callaghan keen to build on first win

B.J. Callaghan is desperate for Nashville SC to build on his first win at the helm when they host the Chicago Fire in MLS on Wednesday.

Nashville lost nine of 10 games – going down in a penalty shoot-out after drawing the other – either side of Callaghan’s appointment, but they finally turned the corner on Saturday.

Goals from Alexandre Muyl and Hany Mukhtar fired them to a 2-0 win over Atlanta United, and Callaghan sees Wednesday’s clash with Chicago – who are level with

Nashville in the Eastern Conference standings – as an opportunity to build some momentum.

“We were pleased with the performance we had, we’ve talked about having consistent performances and stacking them up,” Callaghan said.

“It’s a quick turnaround, so everything we’ve been doing leading into Chicago has been about focusing on ourselves and making sure the guys recover.

“Then we’ll just focus on the things we’re good at, try to get better at those things, and we’ll apply some of those ideas to the challenge that Chicago will bring.

“They’re probably looking at us the same way as we’re looking at them, as a game where they want to earn three points.”

Locked N

Shoutout to the backline for holding it down and securing the clean sheet against ATL pic.twitter.com/1tIUPId0pC

— Nashville SC (@NashvilleSC) September 17, 2024

Chicago also halted a miserable run of six games without a win (one draw, five defats) by beating the New York Red Bulls 2-1 last time out, moving within four points of the wild-card places.

“It’s about time! It feels great, because I think we faced some adversity,” Klopas said.

“People faced adversity and stepped up, so huge credit to the team as a whole. It’s important that we’re still in this thing, now we have to go on the road and keep fighting.”

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Nashville SC – Hany Mukhtar

Mukhtar has scored two hat-tricks against the Fire in his MLS career, one of seven players to record multiple hat-tricks against a single opponent.

No player in MLS history has recorded three hat-tricks against a single opponent.

Chicago Fire – Georgios Koutsias

Koutsias has scored on each of his last two appearances. Two Fire players (Maren Haile-Selassie and Hugo Cuypers) have already scored in at least three straight games this year.

The only previous seasons in which three different Fire players had streaks of three or more games with a goal were 2018 and 1998.

MATCH PREDICTION – NASHVILLE SC

The Fire’s 1-0 home win over Nashville on July 8 was their first win in the teams’ head-to-head series, after Nashville had gone unbeaten through the first four encounters (two wins, two draws).

Nashville ended an eight-match losing streak in MLS action on Saturday, beating Atlanta United 2-0 to also end a run of allowing multiple goals in eight successive games.

They might be confident of repeating the trick, with Chicago only winning three of their last 21 road games in all competitions (six draws, 12 defeats).

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

Nashville SC – 46.3%

Chicago Fire – 27.1%

Draw – 26.6%