[Image from Nashville Post]

In a normal situation, it would be way too early in the USL Championship season to be discussing something like this. But this is not a normal situation. This situation has the potential to impact a new, budding sports franchise for its entire history. It should be discussed.

Gary Smith, the current (and future) head coach of Nashville S.C., who currently play in the USL Championship, or the second division of U.S. professional soccer, was appointed the manager of the MLS team. Nashville SC will start playing in the MLS next season, in 2020. This is only Nashville’s second year in the USL Championship. Gary Smith has been our coach since inception and it looks like Ian Ayre and the rest of the Nashville SC leadership want to stick with him into the MLS.

That worries me.

Gary wasn’t a bad coach last year. He wasn’t a great coach, but he wasn’t bad. He led us to the playoffs in our first year where we almost beat the best team in the league, Cincy, taking them to penalties where we eventually lost in the second round of shots. Gary also has MLS experience. In 2010 he won the MLS Cup with the Colorado Rapids. By all accounts, he seems like a really good pickup for a USL side and a decent candidate to lead a new MLS team.

But he is an old coach. And by that, I don’t mean age. His playstyle is dated. He is definitely a defensive minded coach and that is not the way the MLS works anymore. That is certainly not the way to entice new fans to come to the games. No one, who is iffy on supporting soccer, wants to show up to a game and spend two hours watching a 1-0 defensive slog. They want action and offense. They want goals. Nashville SC did not give them that last year, isn’t giving that so far this year, and there are no signs we will start giving that next year.

Look at Atlanta United. By all accounts, their MLS debut was a massive success. They pack their stadium out. They also play very attacking soccer. Not only have they been commercially successful, they won the Cup last season. What they did worked. Nashville seems to be doing the opposite. We are building a defensive powerhouse that plays boring, inconsistent football, with an outdated managerial playbook. It’s a scary time as a supporter that wants to see this team have a successful launch.

The biggest problem with Nashville last season was the lack of goal scoring. Defensively, we were tight. One of the best defenses in the league. But we could not score. It was super painful at times. In the offseason, we brought in some powerhouse strikers in Daniel Rios and Cameron Lancaster. Both of those forwards are technically signed to the MLS team and loaned to the USL team. There was a lot of hope after those signings. We now have, presumably, two MLS-quality strikers.

But we’ve played 6 games and have scored 7 goals. That’s a little over 1 goal per game. That is unacceptable for two MLS strikers who should be feasting on USL defenses. Granted, our midfield hasn’t been the best and Lancaster has been injured, but we’ve had plenty of possession and some good looks. We should have more goals. It certainly seems like we’re in for another season of 1-0 wins and losses.

It is time we consider whether or not Gary should be the coach of the MLS team. I argue no. Here are my arguments why:

1. He plays too defensive. The MLS is an offense-first league. It needs an offensive mind to succeed. Gary’s playstyle is outdated and it’s already hurting us in the USL.
2. He isn’t even successful in the USL. I know, we’ll have better players all around in the MLS. But we don’t have a bad USL team. On paper, we are one of the best teams. We are the most expensive team in the USL. So, you would think that with a good team and an MLS quality coach, we should be dominating. We are not.
3. He doesn’t learn. He rarely makes adjustments and tries the same stuff over and over.
4. The issues we had last year are still issues this year. A great coach would change things in the offseason and improve weaknesses. Other than the signings, none of the weaknesses have been addressed.
5. Gary is a USL coach. He hasn’t been in the MLS for a while. He is competitive in the USL and that’s where he should stay.

I don’t know why we announced an MLS coach so soon. I guess to give some stability to the team for this last season. But we should have waited to see what Gary could do with this team. Give him an audition. Last season wasn’t incredibly impressive, so we should have given him one more shot and then looked elsewhere.

I am worried that giving Gary the MLS launch is going to really hurt this team. If we aren’t exciting, we won’t grab new fans. If we can’t grab new fans, the club starts struggling right out of the gate. Gary Smith could severely hurt Nashville SC for the rest of the clubs existence if we don’t figure this out.