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Why Nashville SC believes new coach B.J. Callaghan is the perfect fit
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- Why Nashville SC believes new coach B.J. Callaghan is the perfect fit
The opportunity to coach Nashville SC was a no-brainer for B.J. Callaghan .
"When you analyze MLS clubs across the country, Nashville quickly sticks out," Callaghan said at his introductory news conference Friday at Geodis Park. "Starting with the support of (owner John Ingram), you have a great owner who's really built something that's for the city. You have great fans that are passionate, that are knowledgeable, that show up for every game. You have a playoff-proven roster. You're walking into an organization and player pool that know how to win, want to win and expect to win.
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"You have great people in the organization that you're working with every day. You have unbelievable facilities. So across the board when you start to evaluate a club, there's a lot of positives."
The good news for Callaghan: Nashville SC saw him as a no-brainer, too.
General manager Mike Jacobs compiled a large pool of candidates after firing Gary Smith in May. It didn't take long for Callaghan, then an assistant with the United States men's national team, to emerge as Nashville's top target. And in the same way Callaghan can rattle off reason after reason he accepted the job, NSC brass got exactly what they were looking for in hiring him as the second head coach in club history.
Nashville SC liked B.J. Callaghan's work with USMNT , Philadelphia Union
For many American soccer fans, Callaghan rose to prominence last summer. Stepping in as the USMNT's interim head coach for the CONCACAF Nations League, he led the team to wins over Mexico and Canada as it outscored its rivals by a combined 5-0. The U.S. team then reached the CONCACAF Gold Cup semifinals with a roster consisting mostly of reserves and domestic-based players before he reverted to his prior role when Gregg Berhalter was rehired.
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"Before I watched B.J. on the touchline coaching the U.S. team, when they made the appointment, my first thought was that B.J.'s been a head coach all along," Jacobs said. "He just hadn't gotten the opportunity to do so . . . The way he handled himself, it's not an easy situation to come into."
But Jacobs was equally impressed with what Callaghan, who had been with the USMNT since 2019, did as an assistant coach for the Philadelphia Union from 2014 to 2018. Callaghan worked as an on-field assistant under Jim Curtin and also was integral for the Union's youth academy, helping develop current U.S. internationals Brenden Aaronson , Mark McKenzie , Zack Steffen and Auston Trusty .
Callaghan's developmental role with the Union could translate especially well to a Nashville team that is still building its youth academy and MLS Next Pro affiliate Huntsville City FC, and has signed homegrown players Adem Sipić and Isaiah Jones to first-team contracts in the past year.
"In MLS, you really need to play with all the pieces on the board," CEO Ian Ayre said. "When you play in a salary cap league. it's very difficult to be dipping into more experienced players all the time. The ability to have a coach who can take a young player, give them an opportunity and bring them through our ranks is going to be crucial."
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Nashville reached out to players Callaghan worked with during his time in Philadelphia and with the USMNT, including defenders Walker Zimmerman and Shaq Moore . They also talked to Curtin and Berhalter, who was fired after the U.S. was eliminated in the group stage of this summer's Copa América.
"We never spoke to anyone that didn't give anything other than a glowing report," Ayre said.
Nashville SC hopes B.J. Callaghan brings aggressive style of soccer
The most common criticism of Smith was a stylistic one that became more of a practical one late in his tenure. His teams were mostly conservative, looking to counterattack and play without the ball instead of forcing the action in the opponents' half of the field.
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Though Smith's approach paid off with four playoff appearances in NSC's first four seasons in MLS, Nashville began regressing last summer and won just five of its final 27 games against MLS competition under him.
Jacobs believes Callaghan offers an antidote, using words such as "physical," "direct" and "proactive" to describe his attacking approach.
"The way B.J. wants to play, he wants to put as much pressure on the other team in their end of the field," Jacobs said. "He's all about trying to create scoring chances really quickly . . . As we thought about what NSC 2.0 was going to look like, we had to be a team that was going to be not only aggressive but make teams uncomfortable in their own half of the field."
Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why Nashville SC hired B.J. Callaghan as coach
