{"id":30010,"date":"2025-11-02T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T08:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/30010\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T08:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T08:00:11","slug":"inter-miami-upset-2-0-nashville-sc-push-herons-to-game-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/30010\/","title":{"rendered":"Inter Miami upset 2.0? Nashville SC push Herons to Game 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Coyotes fought to a memorable <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/mls-cup-playoffs\/2025\/matches\/nshvsmia-11-01-2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2-1 win<\/a> at GEODIS Park on Saturday, keeping their Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs hopes alive behind goals from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/sam-surridge\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sam Surridge<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/josh-bauer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Josh Bauer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/lionel-messi\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lionel Messi<\/a> pulled one back late for the Herons, but Nashville held on to send the Round One Best-of-3 Series down to the wire.<\/p>\n<p>Both sides will play for a spot in the Eastern Conference Semifinals on Nov. 8 at Chase Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think our group was committed to responding to play our way here at home,&#8221; said head coach B.J. Callaghan, praising his side&#8217;s response from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/mls-cup-playoffs\/2025\/matches\/miavsnsh-10-24-2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3-1 loss<\/a> in Game 1.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We did that from the opening whistle. And it&#8217;s just about making sure that we take that mentality with us, no matter if we&#8217;re home or away, in another game where it&#8217;s win or go home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n      Statement performance<\/p>\n<p>After conceding eight goals to Miami in their last two meetings, the Coyotes put in a monumental defensive effort to hold the visitors to just a single, late goal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can talk a lot about tactics and on-the-field stuff. I think this game wasn&#8217;t so much about that,&#8221; said Bauer, who started at left back in place of the injured <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/daniel-lovitz\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daniel Lovitz<\/a>. &#8220;You know, we made little tweaks and we watched the video and did some things differently.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But this game, this game was between the ears and in your hearts. And you could see that, I think, from everyone tonight. Little cold and rainy. Perfect for us just to be dogs out there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Saturday was Nashville&#8217;s 10th meeting against Miami since Messi&#8217;s arrival in the summer of 2023. They hadn&#8217;t won any of those, notably losing the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/leagues-cup\/2024\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Leagues Cup<\/a> 2023 final and being knocked out of the 2024 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/concacaf-champions-league\/2024\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Concacaf Champions Cup<\/a> by the South Florida side, among other setbacks.<\/p>\n<p>For the Coyotes, it was important to remind themselves \u2013 and the league \u2013 that it&#8217;s not as one-sided a rivalry as recent history might indicate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can go toe to toe like we did tonight and play the type of game that we want to play,&#8221; said Bauer. &#8220;We talk about the game within the game and all the little extra stuff that goes on. We&#8217;ve got to be nasty. We&#8217;ve got to show that. But I think this gives us a lot of confidence, the first time beating Miami and kind of getting that monkey off our back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n      2024 all over again?<\/p>\n<p>Heading into a pivotal Game 3, Nashville are hoping to ensure that Miami exit the playoffs in Round One for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n<p>The 2024 Supporters&#8217; Shield-winning Herons suffered an all-time upset last season when No. 9 seed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/atlanta-united\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta United<\/a> overcame a Game 1 loss by winning the next two matches to send that year&#8217;s favorites packing.<\/p>\n<p>While that certainly has to be in the back of Nashville&#8217;s mind this week, they&#8217;re focusing less on Atlanta&#8217;s performance last year and more on the successes they&#8217;ve already had in 2025. Winning the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/u-s-open-cup\/2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">US Open Cup<\/a>, their first trophy in club history, has given them the belief \u2013 and the hardware \u2013 to validate the idea that they can win crucial, knockout matches against great teams.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re in a constant state of trying to get better&#8230; and we get better from using those past experiences,&#8221; said Callaghan. &#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of things that we can point to. Like playing in an elimination tournament like the Open Cup&#8230; There&#8217;s that pressure of it&#8217;s win or go home. That&#8217;s an easy one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to win on the road in this league, and we know it&#8217;s going to take an effort even greater than what we had tonight to beat them on the road,&#8221; added Bauer. &#8220;I know that B.J. and the rest of the staff is going to have us prepared and ready to go and, and put our best foot forward.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These are when the lights are the brightest. We&#8217;ve got to be up for it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Coyotes fought to a memorable 2-1 win at GEODIS Park on Saturday, keeping their Audi 2025 MLS&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16163,123,125,124,5426,5430,17351,4959],"class_list":["post-30010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-match-reaction","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-mls-cup-playoffs","tag-nashville-sc","tag-nshvsmia-11-01-2025","tag-sendtonews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}