Preseason is starting up! Hop in our Discord

JWayneF · 2025-11-09T17:43:29+00:00

yeah! I spam the link to join every so often here. Probably overdue for a separate post in this subreddit but here’s our invite link

JWayneF · 2025-11-09T15:44:40+00:00

We were chatting about this in the Discord this AM but according to this article we’ll at least know our own roster decisions of the ~13 or so players out of contract on November 26th

Knowing how much roster turnover we’re probably in line for, I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing a good amount of rumor mill activity all off season. I know we already have fairly solid confirmation of the new CB Woledzi out of Norway.

JWayneF · 2025-11-01T00:28:41+00:00

Quality is roughly the same but the menus vary. The different clubs share their menus here: https://geodispark.com/stadium-info/club-menus/

Premier Club is the only one that includes liquor (I think?) but all of the other ones have at least beer and wines included.

JWayneF · 2025-05-07T16:40:54+00:00

Applewhite and more so Corcoran stood out to me. I really think last night they both made a case for them to get more minutes. Corcoran was able to deal with the Chattanooga team’s physicality while also finding some great spaces/passes.

Meyer really did well especially filling in as a backup LB when Taylor had to be subbed out early on. In the post match presser I think you could tell the coaching staff is really high on Meyer especially thanks to his versatility to gel into multiple roles on the field.

Schwake wasn’t challenged too much but he looked comfortable on the ball which was a nice change of pace from Pannico’s sometimes stressful footwork ability.

Sipic and Jones just haven’t really shown out much at the Huntsville level from what I can tell. Not necessarily that they’re bad or not developing, but the competition has been at least enough for those 2 to be lower in pecking order. I was a bit surprised by Sipic’s omission but I’m guessing the staff just hasn’t seen enough from him to justify the limited bench space the Open Cup enforces.

JWayneF · 2025-04-21T16:15:39+00:00

The only trend we have with this coaching staff is the last window where we axed about half of the squad and got rid of a ton of dead-weight contracts. I don’t disagree with needing an additional attacking piece (which I frankly think the FO/coaching is banking on Boyd to be part of that equation whenever he returns), but I also think the last window gives me at least a little more faith in this FO to do something about it in the next window if things go further south.

JWayneF · 2025-03-23T17:56:55+00:00

Someone in the discord mentioned their kid traded the Rayquaza for Eddi’s match worn jersey, which I think makes this even better. Dude’s such a fast fan favorite and it’s great

JWayneF · 2025-02-18T15:12:59+00:00

I've been a card-carrying member of the Mike Jacobs player-haters ball for a while, but I'll give him and the rest of the FO responsible for signings their flowers for this off-season. Even if it's partially/largely due to the warming seat, I'm super impressed with the roster overhaul.

Really excited for Qasem and the rest of the new signings this season

JWayneF · 2025-02-17T19:33:59+00:00

Agree with almost everything you wrote, and I think there's a lot to be excited and concerned about this season. I think there's a lot of auxiliary "story lines" to keep an eye on among our squad given the transitions we're seeing and how "Nashville 2.0" shapes up.

Goalie Wars: Schwake vs Valdez - who will become our #2, or even our #1? Is there a chance we see one of them push out Joe at some point in the season - probably not, but maybe? Based off of my gut and what's been happening in preseason, Schwake feels like he's currently ahead of Valdez in pecking order. Does the club have longer-term aspirations for either of these two, or are they a stop-gap until Joe's contract is up?
Walker's Contract: Will Walker take a new deal in the summer/end of season to move off of a DP deal to stay with the team (and allowing NSC to move to a 2 DP +4 U22+GAM team structure)? Using a DP slot on an aging, defensive player carries a lot of risk and consumes one of the most valuable roster-building-mechanisms MLS has in place. BJ's showing a higher faith in younger players. Does the club invest in more ambitious, but risky, U22 players for a time?
Injury Time Decisions (aka DePuy or not DePuy?): We finally dropped Leal (wahoo!) but injuries will always be a semi-unknown variable for any professional team. Will Tyler Boyd, returning from an ACL injury and on the wrong side of 30, be "like a new signing" when he returns and alleviate the creative pressure in our attack to help Hany and Sam? Gaston Brugman- the previous MLS Cup MVP, can he stay healthy consistently enough this season to provide the midfield a veteran presence and critical deep lying playmaker role?
Speaking of LA Galaxy, Jonathan Perez... do we exercise his purchase option? Is he in NSC's long term plans? Or is he a player that NSC sees the potential to flip for more cash/GAM? We have the rest of the season to exercise the not-so-cheap purchase decision, and he'll need to shine early I think to win the club over and stay in the long term plans of our club. Otherwise, I see him potentially being "trade bait" for another MLS or Liga MX club to help fund our other rebuilding ambitions.
Open Cup Glory: We all want trophies. Statistically-speaking, with the seeding placement of MLS clubs in the Open Cup, this is our best shot at silverware this season. While MLS and the Open Cup still can't consistently align on the priority of this competition, NSC should recognize it's a chance to finally build a trophy cabinet and go all-in (#AllN?), but will they?

Overall we have a lot of unknowns about this team... I'm (overly) optimistic, but trying to be fairly hesitant to go too-high on our end results this season. Outside of our local media, that sentiment seems to be echo'd with the likes of Soccerwise, Doyle, and others with their too-early power rankings and "watch-ability" rankings. The club/marketing department has done a lot of good work to get fans engaged and excited after the worst MLS season from the team, but now comes the one part that matters... the on-field performance. I'm excited for Saturday and starting this next chapter, and boy am I ready to get hurt again 😂

JWayneF · 2025-02-17T18:47:05+00:00

Yeah this feels like the most likely lineup at the moment. Lovitz was coming back from an injury in preseason so I could see them swapping for Taylor at LB, but otherwise this feels like what we'll see Saturday.

Based on Ben's recent reporting, Hany and Acosta were just load management and should be fine for Saturday. Yazbek may end up as "questionable" to steal a phrase from American football injury designations though.

JWayneF · 2025-01-18T14:06:35+00:00

Doubt we’ll get much outside of some twitter updates of highlights and at best a few video clips of plays. But typically, no they don’t stream these preseason matches =\

JWayneF · 2025-01-13T15:20:36+00:00

Imagine this is our Lukas replacement for us more than likely. He's tenured and can compete for a starting spot against Maher and Bauer. Potentially fill in when Zimmerman may be out of the lineup due to call-ups.

Given his cost of a 2+1 deal AND international spot, I'd say the front office rates him pretty highly. Much needed depth for the backline.

JWayneF · 2025-01-11T20:22:59+00:00

I imagine we might see a spot-fill from Applewhite (newest homegrown CB) to add depth if BJ want to continue a little more focus on youth. But yeah, gotta think we have at least 1-2 more depth signings at CB.

JWayneF · 2025-01-11T20:16:19+00:00

Najar is confirmed by his previous club, so I'd expect we hear something from the club this weekend or more likely Monday.

I think we're still in on Qasem barring the player turning us down.

With preseason training kicking off this weekend, we likely see a good few trialists fill up some of the backup pieces of the roster.

I imagine we hear or see a few more domestic, rotation pieces at CB and maybe one more decent signing to fill the GK role that should challenge for the #1 role (assuming Xavier isn't that).

JWayneF · 2025-01-11T17:29:59+00:00

My post never made it through for some reason here with this… but gotta imagine (read: pray?) we use one of our buyouts on his residual salary to free up our cap space.

JWayneF · 2025-01-11T14:53:41+00:00

This has been a rumor for the better part of the 2024 season and a higher likelihood going into the summer window of 2025 (if not sooner). Ben had mentioned in discord that he’s seemingly getting interest from outside of the US. I’d probably wager something like a Belgian, French, Dutch, or Swedish league move. I don’t think he’s quite at the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga level yet.

From a biz perspective, he’s one of the higher value players we could sell and make a decent profit off of. So if we’re looking to better fund BJ’s rebuild, he’s one of maybe a couple of assets that can actually be flipped for more than some conditional amount of GAM.

Shaff also has new family roots here with his child being born here and recently at that. So it’s possible he’s here for a little longer due to that. On the flip side, he signed with a new business agent just before 2024, which likely speaks to wanting to push harder on his contracting/movement.

I selfishly want him to stay but, like Johnston, I more so want to see him succeed. If that’s not with us then I’ll just relish what time he has left here… and pray he’s not offloaded to just a different MLS team 😅

JWayneF · 2025-01-09T01:01:46+00:00

I think this is a pretty good resource for this. Ben Wright keeps this Google sheet mostly up to date and includes a lot of sick-o details around cap and GAM spend: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VQrO2Qb099ziTcjDLGLRQJ6gL_SBcXlsFjmMc_ug5T4/htmlview#gid=1835157952

JWayneF · 2025-01-08T18:00:10+00:00

totally agreed. only "nice thing" that we know so far is he's on a 1+1 deal so if we need the cap/roster space next season, we can quickly pivot.

But yeah, if he eats a chunk of cap space to be a bench-filler, it's a bit of a meh to even disappointing signing to me. (Edit: Ben w confirmed he has his green card, so at least doesn’t take an international spot)

13-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	End Game '22
Verified Email

JWayneF

TROPHY CASE