Nashville SC shakes off slow start, routs DC United 5-2 to advance to US Open Cup semifinals
Trailing by two after just 24 minutes, Nashville SC didn't flinch. Why would it?
Four days after a last-minute win over the Philadelphia Union while playing down a man, Nashville stormed back against D.C. United, scoring five unanswered goals to win 5-2 in the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals July 9 at Geodis Park.
With the win, which included two goals from Sam Surridge and one each from Jonathan Perez, Andy Najar and Walker Zimmerman, Nashville advanced to the semifinals of the tournament for the first time.
It was Nashville's fifth straight win and extended its unbeaten streak to 15 games across all competitions.
"You can feel the camaraderie, you feel the belief, you feel the selflessness that's shining through," Zimmerman said. "Tonight was a perfect example of that. You go down two goals, you just put your head down and keep going, keep trusting the process."
Slow start for Nashville
D.C. United is 13th in the Eastern Conference, 11 spots behind Nashville, and came in having won one of its past 10 matches. But it had success in two regular-season games against NSC — holding it without a goal from open play — by forgoing aggressive pressing in favor of deep, compact defense and timely counterattacks.
Zimmerman said Nashville expected the same thing for this game. And after Gabriel Pirani's fifth-minute strike past Brian Schwake and an own goal off the foot of Jack Maher, D.C.'s defense only tightened up.
"D.C. did a decent job of occupying the spaces we wanted," assistant coach Michael Nsien said. "The midfield was pretty blocked . . . It was about adding more players to the high line so we could get them to run backwards, and then we started to pick up the ball in the middle of the field."
Nashville rallies in second half
Nashville didn't waste time after falling behind 2-0. In the 26th minute, Perez scored after a poor clearance from D.C., coming less than two minutes after Maher's own goal. Surridge tied the game on a penalty less than 10 minutes out of halftime.
Perez had picked up a red card against Philadelphia but responded with one of his best games as a professional. In the 72rd minute, he used a flashy dribble to get past D.C. right back David Schnegg before crossing to Surridge for a point-blank tap-in. The go-ahead goal was the 18th for Surridge, who leads MLS in scoring in 2025.
Najar ripped a volley off a free kick from 30 yards away to make it 4-2, and Zimmerman, making his first appearance for Nashville since May 31 after a month with the United States men's national team, headed home Nashville's fifth goal off a cross from Gaston Brugman.
"I can imagine from D.C.'s perspective, the emotional toll of the game to be ahead early, they start to sit back quite a bit, and we believe in ourselves a lot physically," Nsien said. " . . . Once we got ahead, we felt like we could stay ahead."
Nashville not looking ahead to semifinals
Nashville returns to MLS play to face Lionel Messi and Inter Miami on July 12 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Its U.S. Open Cup semifinal is set for Sept. 16 and will be against either the Philadelphia Union or the New York Red Bulls, who were set to play on July 9 before weather forced their game to be postponed until Aug. 13.
If Nashville wins the Open Cup, it would be the first championship of any kind in club history, as well as the first for a major professional sports team in Tennessee.
"We've talked about it since the beginning of the year," Zimmerman said. "When you have your visions, your dreams of what this season looks like, success is defined by that. We are aware of it. We are chasing it. But the same time, what's been preached to us is this process. We're not going to look ahead to September. We're just going to keep rolling, keep our level head."
Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.