USL Nashville SC

Nashville SC Not Looking to Dwell on 1-0 Loss to North Carolina FC

July 1, 2019 - United Soccer League Championship (USL)
Nashville SC News Release


NASHVILLE - The 2019 USL Championship season is a long one.

That's why Nashville Soccer Club won't be sulking for long after a tough 1-0 loss at North Carolina FC that snapped a seven-match unbeaten streak on Saturday night. With another matchup of Eastern Conference elites coming up this weekend at Louisville City FC, there's not much time to let this loss fester.

"We look at it on Monday, and we will go through the video and see what we did wrong," said defender Bradley Bourgeois. "You have to move on. There is no point in dwelling on it. It's unfortunate we didn't capitalize on this game. It was a big one. We have the two-time champs coming up. I know everyone will be looking forward to it, I know the fans will be. It's one we have to take advantage of, really. Louisville hasn't been in the greatest run of form and high up the table like last year, but it's just an opportunity to get three points."

Nashville SC did not get off to the start it wanted to against North Carolina, losing the possession battle in the first half and ultimately conceding the first goal midway through the half. However, the team battled back in the second half, controlling the tempo and the offensive third, but were unable to find the final ball to net an equalizer. While Head Coach Gary Smith was happy with his squad's resilience to battle back in the second half, he was still not happy with how the first half unfolded.

"I thought it was a game of two very different halves," Smith said. "They were by far the better team in the first half. We could not get going, the shape looked awful, they took advantage of it and managed to get themselves a slender lead, which in all fact could have been slightly more than that. I thought we were by far the better team in the second half. But, tonight the goal scoring abilities and prowess of the group deserted us, and sadly we failed to keep our goal intact yet again. Those days are going to come along and it's got to be a combined effort. We've missed out on a point. If we're not going to score and we're not going to give ourselves that chance of winning the game, then we shouldn't be losing it. That's the disappointing aspect. I thought the second half was really good. Good reaction, far better ability and overall picture. But the first half was just nowhere near it."

Even though the Boys in Gold couldn't find the back of the net, Smith did take steps to try and turn the tide of the match. He made an early substitution and shifted formations before the first half ended in order to stimulate the offense. While the changes didn't fully take effect until after halftime, it helped spark the group to push for a goal.

"I had seen enough," Smith said. "We had moved from a 3-5-2 to a 4-4-2 before Alan came on, so I think it was after about 32-33 minutes, we changed and I had seen enough. We were a goal down, their shape was dominating ours and there wasn't enough intensity in our game. We certainly weren't good enough on the ball to make a difference, and I felt as though making a bit of a shift in the group was going to help us get some traction. It didn't straight away, although Alan a little bit of an impact. But, it didn't give us the desired effect straight away. We needed halftime to come along and honestly the attitude was far better. It was far brighter and more positive. That showed in some of the statistics in the second half. We certainly controlled that, created the best chances. It's just a night of frustration for everyone through a bad first-half performance. It wasn't anywhere near good enough for this group, and I think the guys are feeling that."

With such a tough test coming up for Nashville SC in Louisville, the players will be hoping that a stronger second half will lead to an even stronger 90 minutes against the defending USL Cup champions this weekend.

"I think we've just got to build off of the positives from that game, especially the positives of the second half," said goalkeeper Connor Sparrow. "I thought it was really like night and day, our performance in the first half and in the second half as a collective unit. We'll be able to build off of a lot of that second half, we've just got to focus on bringing that intensity and energy and the quality that we showed in the last 45 minutes tonight. We need to bring that for the full 90 next Saturday."



United Soccer League Championship Stories from July 1, 2019


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