Soccer fans who are new to the scene in Nashville are likely aware that Nashville SC represents the city at the USL level. What many may not know is that there’s another successful club in town: Inter Nashville FC. Playing its games at International Indoor Soccer Complex in Antioch, the amateur National Premier Soccer League side has a little different vision for its club.
“My endgame was just to give players that I know are quality the chance to showcase so they can get pushed on to the pro level: I want all my guys playing pro,” said head coach Richard Askey. “So if we can facilitate that with Nashville Soccer Club, all the better.
“We focus on grassroots soccer: we own our own soccer complex down in Nashville, so we have a grassroots soccer from the ages of three all the way to adults playing every day from four in the afternoon until 11 at night. We’re a real community-based club. We love getting everybody involved, playing. That’s our main aim: just to give people the opportunity to play at all levels, all abilities. Then we want to give the real superstars in that community the chance to shine, and hopefully play well enough to earn a contract with one of the pro teams. I think it can only be beneficial for the city to have both teams here.”
Inter Nashville FC’s regular season begins May 12 in Greenville, S.C., but there’s something to play for before that: the team takes on Charlotte Eagles in the US Open Cup next Wednesday evening. Should Inter take home the victory, they’ll be playing against Nashville SC in a local derby in the second round of the competition May 16.
“We’re sort of the minnows of the city, so we want that game more than anything,” Askey admitted. “We want to test ourselves against the higher-ranked team, we want to show our players are just as good, and can hopefully earn a contract on that pro team. All our guys just cannot wait. We’re really focused on that first game, if we can beat the Charlotte Eagles, we set up the Battle of Nashville which is just going to be a huge thing for the city. We’re trying not to look past that first game, obviously, but if we could win it, it would just be massive for the club, and it would be a huge event for Nashville.”
The goals for the club extend beyond just to get a game against their local professional side. Indeed, the team finished third in the Southeast Conference’s West Division last year, and took home the conference tournament title, advancing to the regional final of the national tournament before falling to Midland-Odessa (Texas), the eventual runner-up.
Repeating last year’s success is the expectation – and Inter Nashville FC has the talent to do it.
“We’ve kept a lot of the players that we wanted to from last year,” Askey said. “The majority of our starters are back again. We’ve really upgraded our supporting players, so we expect to be a bit stronger than we were last season in our first year. Our expectations are pretty high again: we expect to go into the playoffs, we would like to get through the playoffs obviously and onto the regional stage., We are going to be shooting for the very top again this season.
“We’ve got Liam Collins again, our center midfielder who was on the NPSL national team of the year. He’s back again to boss the midfield. We’ve got Danny Dunleavy who again was on the NPSL national team of the year. Those two guys are back. Our goalkeeper Hayden Coffman and centerback Richard Reichenberger, who were both on the Southeast conference team of the year, they’re back again. We’ve got Felix Obilo who played for the Kenyan under-20 national team. He’s going to be a defensive center mid for us. Our striker Chuka Aruh, big guy from Nigeria, he’s going to be back, and I’m tipping him to be the top scorer in the whole league, I expect him to get a goal a game.”
The preparation for this year ended up being a bit different from the prior season: with a bit more national a talent base, the full-team practice sessions didn’t begin until later. However, there’s still be plenty of time to prepare to reach – or exceed – last year’s results.
“Last year, we had a lot of local guys, so we were practicing before Christmas,” Askey said. “This year, we started up about February – early February – with some of the local guys. We’re still waiting on getting some of our college kids in, so that’s a little tricky. We’ve played four or five different colleges, played some local teams, as well. We’ve gone undefeated against through this preseason, which is encouraging, and the guys have got a good run-out.”
The final preseason game takes place at International Indoor Soccer Complex this weekend: the team will take on Nashville United Soccer Academy Saturday at 8 p.m. Then, it’s on to the meaningful contests, with everything left to play for to begin the year.
Club and Country 