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Nashville SC not in best form, but Shak Mohammed scores to beat Atlanta United
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- Nashville SC not in best form, but Shak Mohammed scores to beat Atlanta United
Twenty-five minutes into Nashville SC's first game in nearly two months, Maxwell Woledzi waved his arms up and down, exhorting the supporters' section to make some noise.
Woledzi already seemed to be struggling for options. A sellout crowd had come to Geodis Park expecting to see more of the same from the team that had stormed to the best record in MLS during the season's first half. For the most part, they didn't get what they came for.
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Nashville was far from a well-oiled machine in its first match coming out of the World Cup break. Atlanta United , which entered with the second-fewest points in the Eastern Conference, outshot NSC 12-9.
But in the end, Shak Mohammed saved the day by heading in a cross from Alex Muyl in the 79th minute, and Nashville (11-3-1, 36 points) captured a 1-0 win at home on July 17 despite being far from its best.
"We knew the quality we had," Mohammed said. "We did have some good passages of plays in the first half, and it was just one pass away from clicking. As expected, our first game back, the cohesion sometimes just takes a few reps to get going."
Coach B.J. Callaghan expected a little bit of rust. Other than a closed-door scrimmage against St. Louis City earlier this month, there have been few opportunities for Nashville to replicate an actual game environment. But there's less tolerance for rust when a team is leading the Supporters' Shield race and has shown just how good it can be.
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Still, he didn't have much to be dissatisfied with in regard to Mohammed or a defense that posted its seventh shutout in 15 MLS games. Brian Schwake made five saves and took away Atlanta's best chance of the game when he came off his line to make a one-handed stop in the 59th minute.
"The guys will get sharper," Callaghan said. "Right now is not the time to be our best version of ourselves. We've got great ambitions."
Injuries remain a concern for Nashville SC
Nashville will need to be at full strength to reach those ambitions. Sam Surridge and Eddi Tagseth , who had dealt with injuries before the World Cup break, were back in the lineup against Atlanta, and Andy Najar came in as a second-half substitute.
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But Patrick Yazbek still hasn't played since suffering an injury in warmups against Tigres UANL in the CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinals on May 5. Cristian Espinoza , Reed Baker-Whiting and Warren Madrigal all missed the match and Jeisson Palacios was limited to a short substitute stint.
Callaghan said Tagseth and Palacios are on minutes restrictions, and he didn't have timelines for Nashville's other injured players, though he doesn't expect Espinoza's injury, listed as "lower body," to be long term. Mohammed, Espinoza's replacement in the lineup, was making just his second career start and fifth appearance for Nashville.
"B.J. and the coaches, they reiterate every day in our videos and our meetings about guys being ready to step up," Mohammed said. "They just build this culture where everyone knows it's a team effort, that at some point you will be called to make an impact."
Nashville is treating the post-World Cup stretch as a "second season," according to Callaghan. And though it wasn't always convincing, NSC managed to start that second season the same way it started back in February .
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"There was no expectation that we would be our best with the ball or without the ball," Callaghan said. "But we can always be at our best with the effort, the intensity and the competitive mentality that we put in. For us, I think as a foundation, we saw that tonight."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville SC not in best form, but Shak Mohammed scores to beat Atlanta United
