Maybe slump comes across a bit heavy handed, but winless in three before the Chicago game feels like a slump for this Nashville team. A run of a loss to Toronto FC, a scoreless bore at NYCFC, and a 2-2 draw at Inter Miami where Nashville led twice and still couldn’t hold on.

Three games, two points, and a team sitting nine clear at the top of the East somehow finding a way to make headlines out of not winning. To be honest it’s the kind of problem most MLS clubs would take in a heartbeat. Then Chicago Fire showed up at Geodis Park on September 19, and Nashville reminded everyone why the idea of a ‘slump’ was so ridiculous in the first place.

3-0. Sam Surridge in the 33rd minute, Cristian Espinoza in the 78th, Hany Mukhtar closing it out in the 87th. Three different scorers, and the first time in club history that all three Designated Players scored in the same match. Espinoza, Mukhtar and Surridge have combined for 51 goal contributions this season.

There was something almost suspiciously perfect about the way Nashville’s goals arrived. Callaghan’s side had all three of its big attacking names on the scoresheet, but the full-backs were doing plenty of the work to make it happen. Reed Baker-Whiting helped create Surridge’s opener, Andy Nájar supplied the assist for Espinoza’s second, and Espinoza then turned provider for Mukhtar to finish the night. A noticeably good game for the coaching staff, who deserve their flowers too.

Callaghan has built Nashville around width, movement and getting numbers into the attack without losing the defensive structure behind it. Against Chicago, the shape worked almost exactly as intended. The full-backs pushed on, the midfield kept finding the pass underneath, and Surridge’s movement gave Mukhtar and Espinoza room to work. Chicago were continually being asked questions, and eventually ran out of answers. The whole front line scored, 5 different players picked up a goal contribution, and Nashville finished with 57 percent possession and a 13-9 advantage in shots.

For Callaghan, that is probably the more encouraging part of the 3-0, other than the scoreline itself. It was not simply three Designated Players taking turns to rescue the team. It was the entire attacking structure contributing to the result. When your tactical blueprint produces that, you probably don’t spend too much time worrying about a three-game winless run.

Nashville became the first team in MLS to clinch a 2026 playoff spot. Not “clinched with a game to spare.” First team in the entire league, full stop, with eight regular-season matches still left to play. They also set four club records in the same ninety minutes: regular-season wins (17), points (57), home wins (12), and home goals (39). That’s a lot of trophies for a team that, three weeks earlier, was drawing 0-0 at NYCFC and looking like it might be cooling off at exactly the wrong time.

Zoom out and the home form explains most of it. Nashville are 12-0-1 at GEODIS Park this season, the only team in MLS unbeaten at home in league play. Thirty-seven points from a possible thirty-nine there. That’s not a home-field advantage, that’s a home-field guarantee, and it’s a big part of why a three-game winless stretch on the road barely dented the standings. You can afford the occasional stumble away when your return home is basically an automatic three points every other week.

Chicago, for what it’s worth, arrived in worse shape than a fifth-place team chasing the league leader should be. Gregg Berhalter’s side hadn’t won in six across all competitions coming in, four of those draws, and left having gone seven straight without a win and been shut out for the first time since March. The backline didn’t survive contact with Surridge, who scored his eighth goal in six career appearances against the Fire. Maybe Zimmerman had the right idea by picking up a yellow and taking a day off.

Small aside: Berhalter is Sebastian Berhalter’s dad, the same Sebastian currently doing very nice things in a Middlesbrough shirt on the other side of the Atlantic. Football’s small like that sometimes.

B.J. Callaghan, in his second full season in charge, kept his postgame comments refreshingly unglamorous for a night that set four club records.

“When you set out on a vision and you look at the season, the first milestone is you have to earn your way into the MLS playoffs if you want to reach ultimate goals,” he said. “And so for us, it’s a great moment to just take a pause and say, ‘All right, the body of work is good enough that we were able to hit this milestone.’ And then you get back to work.”

Not exactly a locker-room poster, but it tells you something about a coach who’s already won the club’s first-ever trophy, the 2025 US Open Cup, and clearly isn’t interested in mistaking a milestone for the finish line. Mukhtar, the 2022 MVP, was a little more willing to sit in the moment while still pointing at the bigger picture.

“We clinched; that was our first goal of the season and not our last one,” Mukhtar said. “Many more to achieve. But this club is run so well, from the front office to the coaching team to the players. They do a fantastic job each year bringing the right players in, and this team is special.”

Here’s the number that actually explains the mild panic during the winless stretch: Nashville are chasing Inter Miami’s all-time single-season points record of 74, set in 2024 with a fairly unremarkable player named Lionel Messi doing most of the damage.

Every dropped point during that three-game run wasn’t just annoying, it was mathematically expensive. They’re at 57 through 26 games now, meaning the record is still alive, if increasingly difficult to reach, with eight matches to go. A three-game stall looks a lot scarier when there’s a number in the back of your head that only gets harder to hit with every point you don’t collect.

Next up: Toronto FC at home on Saturday, for what Nashville’s marketing department has, with total sincerity, branded Harry Potter Night. Sure. Given Toronto was the team that beat them during the slump in the first place, I’d assume there’s at least a little revenge on the menu alongside the butterbeer. That being said, the Boys in Gold will be entering the game as significant favourites, particularly with Toronto defender Walker Zimmerman unavailable due to 5 yellow cards (former Nashville captain by the way).

The team from Tennessee will have to deal with the weight of expectations now as they continue to rip up MLS. That’s the only reason this three game blip can be called a slump, and if it happens again I’m sure you’ll be able to cut the tension with a knife, or matter of fact, with a spoon (can you tell I just learnt that Reese Witherspoon is a minority Nashville SC owner?).

Regardless, after Toronto, Nashville get two weeks without an MLS game, with the international window emptying out rosters across the league. That gives everyone in Music City plenty of time to sit with a top-of-the-table team that just proved, in the most emphatic ninety minutes of its season, that “slump” was never really the right word to begin with.