Austin FC had co-owner Matthew McConaughey, the familiar confines of Q2 Stadium and a vibrant, strongly partisan crowd of 20,738 therein, plus superiority in expected goals and most other statistical categories on their side.
But Nashville SC had Hany Mukhtar and Sam Surridge on theirs, and that proved enough to tilt the 2025 US Open Cup Final in their favor on Wednesday night.
Nashville's German playmaker bagged the night’s opening goal, capping a well-worked team buildup with an instinctive half-volley. Their English No. 9 slotted home from the penalty spot on the hour mark, running his Open Cup scoring total to a tournament-high six goals. And their entire squad worked doggedly for the rest of the evening to ensure that was enough to deliver the club’s first-ever trophy.
It is, as NSC have eagerly emphasized, the very first championship in the state of Tennessee’s professional sports history.
“It's a big, proud moment for the club, for obviously the team, and this whole city of Nashville,” head coach B.J. Callaghan told the CBS Sports postgame show in the wake of his side’s tight 2-1 victory.
“This team has been built to represent the city of Nashville, and I think you saw that tonight with the commitment and absolute team effort.”
Triumph in this revered 110-year-old tournament represents a breakthrough everyone around the club will savor, and plans for a championship celebration with fans back home at GEODIS Park on Sunday afternoon were confirmed not long after the players hoisted the trophy into the Texas night sky.
Perhaps no one will savor it more than Mukhtar, Nashville’s first-ever Designated Player signing ahead of their 2020 inaugural season and the face of the club ever since.
“It took us six years,” he told the CBS crew, “but we are very happy.”
The Nashville way
NSC’s star strike duo have scored a combined 38 league goals this season – nearly 70% of their team’s scoring output – and their tallies also happened to be the Coyotes’ only two shots on goal in Austin.
It was a study in efficiency and resilience, one made possible by Brian Schwake, the 24-year-old backup goalkeeper who is yet to log a single minute in MLS play but has proven a vital contributor in this Open Cup run. His superb save of Myrto Uzuni’s first-half penalty kick was a massive moment, and ultimately the difference between victory and the unknown for NSC.
Soaking up extensive pressure and hanging on for dear life in that fashion has hardly been Callaghan’s first-choice game plan during his first full season in charge; he’s drawn plaudits for a markedly more proactive, ball-dominant philosophical approach than his predecessor, Gary Smith. Yet this was a match to be won by any means necessary, with no room for the slip-ups that have occasionally marred NSC’s 2025.
“I think all of the shared experiences we've had this year, every single game that we go, we try to play our way, play the Nashville way. And we've had lots of experiences in games where we were up a lot, we concede games, we tie games,” said Callaghan.
“All of those, I would say, moments, are leaned on in a final, and we had to lean on a lot of those moments, whether it's making a big penalty save with Brian or obviously Sam scoring and or Gastón [Brugman] and Bryan Acosta coming into the game and all sort of the moments that people step up and you're under the brightest lights. But this body of work has been done since the beginning of the season.”
Playoff momentum
This title qualifies the Boys in Gold for the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup, and it also provides priceless validation for the stylistic and cultural overhaul they’ve undergone since Callaghan arrived from the US men’s national team staff, even if some of the defensive pragmatism of old was required to see out the win.
Now they’re determined to kick on and apply these lessons to their Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs campaign. With another key three points on the line during a long trip north to visit CF Montréal in their penultimate regular-season match this weekend, Surridge said the group’s focus is already shifting forward.
“Coming in, a lot of new faces, a new coach with a lot of new ideas of how we want to play, and I think, in general, how the group this year evolved is credit to the group, and it makes me so proud,” said Mukhtar, calling on his squad to “make the next step” with more hardware in the coming weeks and years. “Because it's hard, playing a certain way for a very long time and then change it, the mentality of the group, and I think we showed it tonight.”
Austin, too, aim to turn this emotional night into future achievements and crystallize the bitter disappointment inside Q2 into motivation for this year’s postseason and beyond.
“I think we deserve much, much more from this final than what we got,” said Verde & Black head coach Nico Estévez, lamenting what he and his side considered a soft penalty call for the game-winner. “What we can learn from that is use the pain that we have. It is not easy.
“Hopefully we learned from that today, and that pain that we have is the fuel that help us to wake up tomorrow and leads us forward to get what we want to get in the rest of the season.”
