MLS Cup betting tip: Nashville SC- Orlando City
Nov 23, 2021
MLS Cup: Nashville SC- Orlando City
Nashville are very tough to beat , or score against for that matter and two months ago, at the end of September, I touched upon the latter, ahead of a trip to Florida to play Inter Miami..........
Nashville are a very strong defensive unit, they have conceded just 23 goals, a division low total in the Eastern Conference, but looking at xGA, even that should be two less, they have lost just three times all season (10-11-3) and are very difficult to score against. Having said that, one of those defeats was here in this very fixture last month, when they lost 2-1 to Inter, but that was the first time in five h2h meetings (all played in the last 13 months) that Miami had scored and NSC will surely be out for revenge this evening. That was an odd game, all the goals came after the break, Nashville had been the better side and restricted Inter to long range efforts only and when they took the lead it felt like game over, but Miami equalised and then with a couple of minutes remaining NSC missed an absolute sitter, the best chance of the game by far, before conceding a 96th minute winner.
Inter are coming off a humiliating home loss to NYRB (0-4) their first defeat in seven and are without a number of key players this evening and they have not been able to even name a full bench in recent starts and it feels like the sheer number of games (this will be their 5th start in 18 days) has caught up with the lack of rotation and options.
They won that 5-1 and lost just one of their ten starts after I wrote those notes, albeit with a lot of draws. Nashville are an ambitious franchise in a sports mad city, they are building a new soccer only stadium which will be finished in April ahead of schedule and which they announced (the new date) yesterday, so winning another playoff game is a great way to publicise it. This is their second season in MLS and also their second in the postseason and early in this campaign I wrote ...........
Nashville had the best defensive record last season of any expansion team in MLS history and look to have kept to that level at the back and improved offensively, albeit without much luck so far.
They are very strong at the back and better offensively than they are given credit for. They are especially good on the counter on the left flank through Costa Rican international midfielder Randall Leal, who is one of the most creative players in MLS and his overlapping left back Daniel Lovitz.
Leal ended the season with 8 goals and the pair with 11 assists between them, strikers Hany Mukhtar and CJ Sapong combined for 28 goals and this is a quartet with a big offensive threat and across the two campaigns (57 games), Nashville have conceded the fewest goals in the MLS. They gave up the joint fewest this year and the fewest for xGA.
Orlando City only finished 3 points back, but are 100% the inferior team and on both sides of the ball. The two met here in Nashville less than two months ago and it finished 2-2 , but the home side led 2-0 and then sat back and tried to rotate and rest players, taking off Leal at two up and the two strikers late with the score 2-1, before conceding an equaliser in the 94th minute. The hosts claim to have learned a lot from that and pledged not to make the same mistakes again, they are unbeaten at home this season (only team in MLS) and have not lost here in over 12 months, which includes a 3-0 home playoff win in 2020.
There is a very heavy home bias in these MLS cup games, something we have discussed multiple times in the past and I expect that to continue this evening.
2 units Nashville SC -1 ball 2.95 asian line.
Good luck !
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