Match Preview: Nashville SC vs Portland Timbers

(Image courtesy of Nashville SC)

Good morning Barbie! After a disappointing 2-0 road loss at the hands of the New York Red Bulls, Nashville SC returns to the friendly confines of GEODIS Park to take on the Portland Timbers on Barbie Night.

The first two games of the 2025 season haven’t produced results yet for Nashville SC, but there have been positives to lean on. However, with four of their next six coming at home, Nashville need to begin to string results together if they have eyes on the playoffs at the end of the season.

For the Timbers, it’s been a tale of two games. An early red card for Kamal Miller in the season opener against Vancouver allowed the floodgates to open as the Canadian side blitzed Portland 4-1.

Then, it was an 89th minute winner from David Da Costa, who signed this offseason from Ligue 1 side Lens for a reported fee of $6 million, that saw the Timbers eek out a 1-0 win against Austin on matchday two.

This marks Portland’s first trip away from home, and Nashville’s second game sleeping in their own beds, let’s dive in!

The History

Nashville SC and the Portland Timbers have met on four occasions in the past, most recently a 4-1 Timbers win at Providence Park in 2024.

In fact, of the soon-to-be five games played between these two clubs, Saturday marks just the second time the Timbers have come to the Music City, last drawing 2-2 with the Boys in Gold in 2022. Goals for Nashville in that game came from Hany Mukhtar and Sean Davis, while Dairon Asprilla and Jaroslaw Niezgoda scored for the visitors.

However, the most notable match between these two clubs is likely their very first.

Exactly five years ago Saturday, these clubs met for the first time in Providence Park. It was Nashville’s second game ever at the MLS level, and it came just days after a devastating tornado tore through the mid-state, including parts of Nashville itself.

The tornado’s path took it from Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood down I-40 all the way to Smith County, some 60 plus miles away. Personally, my backyard is right up against I-40, and the path of the storm brought it within only a couple hundred yards of my house. We escaped with relatively minor damage, but others didn’t.

At the time, the Music City was reeling, with the lives of countless across the mid-state, including many within the Nashville SC organization, forever altered.

Timbers Army responded. In addition to the financial donations many members of the Portland fanbase made, the group hung a large banner to show support.

(Image courtesy of Sean Meagher, oregonlive.com)

The Timbers would win 1-0 that day courtesy of a Diego Valeri goal, and the world would be forever changed in other ways in the following weeks, but those are the kinds of memories that stick with fans for life.

Injury Report

Nashville SC

OUT- Bryan Acosta, Maximus Ekk, Tyler Boyd

QUESTIONABLE- Julian Gaines, Jacob Shaffelburg, Jeisson Palacios

Portland Timbers

OUT- Miguel Araujo, Maxime Crepeau, Juan Mosquera, Jonathan Rodríguez

QUESTIONABLE- Santiago Moreno, Dario Zuparic

Lineup Prediction

We have two changes to last week’s starting lineup, and they’re the two changes head coach BJ Callaghan made at near enough the hour mark against the Red Bulls.

Ahmed Qasem and Patrick Yazbek slide in for Matthew Corcoran and Wyatt Meyer. This pushes Eddi Tagseth into a more central role, of course. Other than that, everything else stays the same.

Starting Qasem may be a bit of a stretch considering he’s been with the club for all of about two weeks and played a grand total of 45 minutes in Gold, but he was such a lightning rod for this team a week ago I think he’s earned it. It also frees up Tagseth to move into the middle, which is a bonus.

Corcoran and Meyer definitely put in shifts in the first two games, but the pace of play in New Jersey appeared to just be too much for them. Plus, it was always expected they were only a temporary starting duo in the middle with so many injuries to that group to start the year.

If Gastón Brugman makes the 18, which looks likely given his lack of an injury designation, don’t be surprised at all if he makes his Nashville debut. Similar expectations can be placed if Jacob Shaffelburg is healthy enough to make the squad.

Analysis & Prediction

Ask anybody covering this league for a living (or out of the passion in their hearts, let’s not get ahead of ourselves about the realities of soccer journalism in this country) and they’ll probably tell you they picked both Nashville and Portland to finish near the bottom of their respective conferences in 2025.

Last time these clubs played, neither one had a normal managerial situation. Rumba Munthali was Nashville’s interim and Dave van de Bergh was on the touchline in place of a suspended Phil Neville. That’s a recipe for an outlier, and the beatdown the Timbers put on the Boys in Gold that day definitely qualifies as one.

This time, with a much more philosophically defined Nashville, I think the hosts not only score their first goal of the season, I think they score their second as well. Not only this, but they get their first win of the year to boot. Give me Nashville 2-0, with a goal by Sam Surridge and another by Ahmed Qasem.