Nashville SC shut out in road loss to Charlotte FC

There aren't many tougher road environments in Major League Soccer than Bank of America Stadium.

While Charlotte FC hasn't particularly distinguished itself in its two-plus seasons in MLS, it's a different animal on its home field, one of just six turf fields in the league. Charlotte is 4-1-1 this season at home and coming into Saturday, had only lost one of its last 15 games there.

Nashville SC couldn't make it two of the last 16, instead falling 1-0 to Charlotte on Saturday night. Patrick Agyemang's 52nd-minute goal was the difference in a tight game that had few clear-cut opportunities on either side, as NSC remained winless in four MLS road matches.

Nashville failed to build off its 4-1 win over CF Montreal last Saturday, which snapped a five-match winless streak.

"This pitch is not easy to play on," said Nashville SC coach Gary Smith. "It takes an awful lot for the guys to adapt to it. The guys run differently, the guys run with the ball differently. ... In all fairness, it certainly wasn't the same sort of caliber as we saw last week."

It's the first loss for Nashville (2-4-5, 11 points) in its last four games against Charlotte (5-5-2, 17 points). NSC beat Charlotte 2-1 at Geodis Park on March 16.

Quiet first half

The first 45 minutes and stoppage time produced a grand total of 0.4 expected goals, 0.3 from Charlotte. Though Charlotte had more of the ball, Nashville took the only two shots on goal, one from Dru Yearwood and the other from Anibal Godoy.

NSC started with three central defenders — Jack Maher, Brent Kallman and Josh Bauer — with Dan Lovitz and Alex Muyl as wingbacks. Lovitz and Muyl would drift back when not in possession, making it difficult for Charlotte to break down Nashville's five-man back line.

"I thought the central defenders did a very good job all night," Smith said. "The group looked like they should have been getting points out of the game."

Charlotte scores early in second half

Walker Zimmerman began the game on the bench and came on at halftime, replacing Kallman in a move Smith planned before the game. Smith said he didn't want to jeopardize Zimmerman's health — he recently returned from a knee injury — on an unpredictable turf field, thus limiting him to the second half.

Yet bringing on the two-time MLS Defender of the Year didn't shore up NSC's defense — it did the exact opposite.

Agyemang used his strength and nimble footwork to take apart the Nashville defense at the start of the second half. Charlotte's 6-foot-4 striker left Zimmerman in the dust on a long run which led to a shot by Kerwin Vargas, and a minute later beat both Zimmerman and Maher before unleashing a left-footed shot past Joe Willis.

"Jack's in a really good spot, he should make the challenge," Smith said. "It's there to be won, and I don't really know quite what happened. What I do know is the ball wriggled out for the big center forward, who won the game for them. To be quite honest, there was very little other than that in the game."

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Up next for Nashville

Saturday was the first game in another packed stretch for Nashville, which hosts Toronto FC on Wednesday before another Southern Championship match against Atlanta United on May 18.

Nashville is familiar with plenty of games in a short amount of time — it began the season with eight matches in 24 days while competing in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. But the Toronto game will be its first Wednesday game in over two months.

Jacob Shames can be reached by email at jshames@gannett.com and on Twitter @Jacob_Shames.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Charlotte FC edges Nashville SC in MLS slugfest