Just hours after Nashville SC beat TFC 2-0 at GEODIS Park, the Tennessee club have fired head coach Gary Smith.
It took the hosts more than 80 minutes to break down a TFC side missing the likes of Federico Bernardeschi, Jonathan Osorio, and Sean Johnson on Wednesday night before a pair of late goals ultimately sealed a win.
That was Nashville’s second win in the last three games, but they went five matches without a win before that. They are 10th in the East after finishing top five in the conference in each of the last three seasons. The general consensus is that they have stagnated, if not regressed.
Smith is the only head coach the club have ever had. He coached Nashville for seven years through their transition from USL Championship side to MLS club and led them to become only the fourth team ever to make the MLS Cup Playoffs in each of their first four seasons in the league. The win over TFC was his 100th as the club’s manager.
Ex-Nashville player Rumba Munthali, the club’s current player development coach, will serve as interim boss.
It’s pretty brutal to be fired after a win, but a glance at social media will show you that Smith had lost a lot of Nashville’s fanbase. When that happens, as TFC know all too well from numerous occasions in the past, it’s hard to recover.