NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Nashville SC has its first home at First Tennessee Park. It has unveiled its first uniform for the 2018 USL season, and is holding a vote for the second. It has 2,000 season-ticket members and rising.

And it appears very soon it will have the first players that will represent the club in its inaugural season in the USL next spring.

“It’s almost like the mist is starting to clear a little bit and now you can start to see a bit of what the team will look like,” Head Coach Gary Smith told the Nashville Ledger’s John Glennon this week. “Because part of a coach’s job is creating – in his mind – what the team will look like, how they want to play and some of the qualities he’s after. Then it’s about adding the right ingredients to make it work.

“Once you start adding those players that you can see mentally bringing certain aspects of your team to life, of course it’s much more exciting.”

Nashville and Smith had the chance to put some players through a test run this year, with the club’s PDL team just missing out on a playoff place this past summer as some strong college prospects got put through their paces. 

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Smith’s ability to turn talent into a cohesive unit, which he displayed seven years ago in claiming the MLS Cup with the Colorado Rapids, and in reaching the Quarterfinals of the 2014 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup with the Atlanta Silverbacks, was one of the characteristics that led Nashville to bring him on board.

“Gary was the guy that I wanted,” Nashville CEO Court Jeske told Glennon. “First and foremost, he’s a good person. Again, he has the credentials and the pedigree. He is very deliberate in the way he’s building the sport here.

“He does have a tremendous amount of charisma, and he loves to tell us and remind us all the time that he was [recently named] one of Nashville’s 25 Most Beautiful People [by Nashville Lifestyles]. When you can get all that and a truly pleasant English accent to go along with it, it helped me know we had the right man for the job.”

After the immediate success that has been seen by numerous expansion clubs over the past four seasons, the hope for Nashville is something similar could arrive in Music City next spring. For Smith, the desire to replicate the feeling of his Rapids side’s victory against FC Dallas in the 2010 MLS Cup is one he’s greatly looking forward to.

“You’ve had apprehension since before the game, wondering how it would all work out,” Smith told Glennon of the 2010 success. “Then for it to all culminate in you actually lifting some silverware afterward is a truly fabulous feeling.

“Only by winning that silverware do you get that feeling back again.”