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'We needed to have a new voice': Why Nashville SC fired Gary Smith, and what's next
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- 'We needed to have a new voice': Why Nashville SC fired Gary Smith, and what's next
While some of its recent expansion brethren have constantly pushed buttons and pulled levers to try to find success, Nashville SC has sought that goal through stability.
FC Cincinnati joined Major League Soccer in 2019 and has had six coaches since then. Inter Miami, which entered the league with Nashville in 2020, is on its third coach. So is Charlotte FC, which began play in 2022.
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Nashville, however, had only ever employed one coach prior to firing Gary Smith on Thursday. The man who fired Smith, general manager Mike Jacobs, has held his position since NSC began as a United Soccer League franchise in 2018. Nashville reached the playoffs in each of its first four MLS seasons behind a large core of players — Hany Mukhtar , Walker Zimmerman , Joe Willis , Dan Lovitz, Anibal Godoy — who have been with the club since 2020.
So why was Smith, considering his track record in Nashville, dismissed when he was? Just 12 games into the season, with Nashville sitting a disappointing but respectable 10th in the Eastern Conference, one spot out of the playoffs? After a 2-0 win over Toronto FC , no less?
To hear Jacobs tell it, the decision was not an abandonment of the club's core principles.
"We just can't afford to be reactionary or be in a situation where we make decisions rash, based off one game or one day or one week," Jacobs said Saturday after Nashville drew Atlanta United under interim coach Rumba Munthali. "Something like this, a decision like that, it goes over a period of time."
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Gary Smith failed to reverse trends dating back to last season
On June 17, 2023, Mukhtar had a hat trick in a 3-1 win over St. Louis City. The victory gave Nashville 35 points through 18 games, good for second in the Supporters' Shield standings. They totaled just 28 points in the 28 games from that game until Smith's firing. Jacobs noted "some trends that we had hoped would reverse" that failed to do so.
"There's no question on my mind, when we first started this whole project, Gary was absolutely the right coach to take us into the start of the process," Jacobs said. "Over time, four-plus years in MLS and two in the USL, I just think it got to a certain point where we needed to have a new voice and a fresher perspective. ... We continue to look at a league and teams that grow and evolve. We have to do the same ourselves."
MORE: What to know about Rumba Munthali, Nashville SC interim coach with Gary Smith fired
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Smith's conservative tactics were the source of occasional criticism during his tenure, but Nashville (3-4-6, 15 points) doesn't have a flawless roster. Its average age of 28.4 is tied as the oldest in MLS , per Transfermarkt. Multiple attempts to find an elite striker to pair with Mukhtar and make the attack less reliant on him have failed. Injuries to Zimmerman, Shaq Moore and Lukas MacNaughton have exposed flaws on defense. The midfield lacks a glut of creative players.
But with Mukhtar, the 2022 MLS MVP, United States internationals Zimmerman and Moore, and designated player Sam Surridge (a team-high seven goals this season), NSC has elite building blocks. Jacobs didn't lay out a timetable for hiring a new coach, nor did he hint at much beyond not wanting to "box ourselves in a corner" by searching for coaches from one specific area or with one specific tactical profile. But he's confident the club's next coach will inherit a team ready to win now.
"(This is) a group that we believe that has the personnel to compete and continue to do what the expectation of this club (is), to advance in the playoffs and pursue a cup," Jacobs said. "That's one of the big reasons we made the move when we did, to do it when there's plenty of season left."
Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville SC: What's next after firing of Gary Smith
