Nashville SC players lift the U.S. Open Cup championship trophy after Nashville SC defeated Austin FC to win the 2025 U.S. Open Cup Championship Final at Q2 Stadium on Wednesday night in Austin, Texas.
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In case you missed it, Nashville SC won the U.S. Open Cup last night, outlasting Austin FC 2-1 in a contentious final played in the Texas capital.
Here’s everything the Coyotes accomplished by emerging victorious from the oldest continuously contested competition in American soccer.
Club and State History
While the Open Cup may rank behind MLS Cup and the Supporters’ Shield in prestige, it is still a universally recognized major domestic trophy in American soccer. And it represents the first national or continental honor won not only in Nashville SC’s brief club history, but by any top-tier major sports team in the state of Tennessee.
Statewide, The NFL’s Tennessee Titans came excrutiatingly close with their famous loss to the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV in January of 2000. The NHL’s Nashville Predators reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 2017, losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins in six games. The NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies reached a Western Conference Finals in 2013.
As for Nashville SC’s previous close calls, the Coyotes hosted the 2023 Leagues Cup Final, but lost on penalties to Lionel Messi and Inter Miami following a 1-1 draw.
A Secure Legacy For Mukhtar
Hany Mukhtar was signed well before Nashville SC ever played an MLS game in August of 2019. And after a rough first season in 2020 – which was complicated by the pandemic – Mukhtar blossomed into the kind of performer you would hope for from your foundational signing. He won the MLS MVP and Golden Boot during the 2022 season, and through 177 regular season appearances over six seasons has contributed to 130 Nashville goals, either by scoring or assisting.
Yet in the eyes of some, he had not yet achieved the same star status as similar foundational MLS signings like as Carlos Vela at LAFC or Miguel Almiron at Atlanta United, in part because his tenure had yet to include a major team honor. That all changed on Wednesday night, and it likely quiets any lingering doubts that Mukhtar is one of the all-time great players of this era of MLS.
A Continental Challenge
Winning the U.S. Open Cup also qualifies Nashville for the 2026 Concacaf Champions Cup, in which they will enter in the first round and start play in February.,
It will be the Coyotes’ second appearance in Concacaf’s top clubs competition, after they qualified for the 2024 competition by reaching the 2023 League Cup final. In 2024, they were eliminated by Inter Miami in the round of 16 over two legs.
Concacaf qualifiers via the Open Cup haven’t fared particularly well over the years. The last to even reach the quarterfinals was Atlanta United in 2020. But data shows that having repeated exposure to continental play is the best way to get better on the continental stage. So it’s certainly a welcome challenge for a very young club.
A Nice Chunk Of Change
U.S. Soccer increased the purse for the Open Cup this year to $1 million total, with $600,000 of that going to the tournament winner, against $250,000 for the runner up. That difference of $350,000 isn’t a huge sum in the world of pro sports, but it’s not completely insignificant either.
The minimum MLS salary in 2025 was $104,000, meaning the difference in winning and losing Wednesday’s match could help cover a few extra homegrown players signings in the future.
Put another way, the total $600,000 prize is almost exactly in line with the MLS average salary of about $594,000, according to data from the MLS Players Association.
