Sam Surridge's 91st-Minute Header Caps Nashville's Comeback From 2-0 Down to Beat New York 3-2 and Tie the MLS Points Record

For forty minutes on Sunday afternoon, the best home team in MLS history was getting beaten in its own building by a team fighting for its playoff life. By the 91st minute, GEODIS Park was shaking, the rain was coming down, and Nashville SC had turned a 2-0 hole into a 3-2 win that tied the league's all-time points record and finished off an unbeaten home season. Some comebacks are about one moment. This one was about an hour of refusal.

Two down, and it could have been worse

Nashville actually started with the game's first big moment: in the 19th minute, Cade Cowell won a penalty for New York and stepped up to take it, and Brian Schwake dived to his right to save it — the goalkeeper's league-leading third penalty save of the regular season. It should have been the platform for a comfortable afternoon. Instead, New York struck twice in six minutes late in the half. Julian Hall broke away to open the scoring in the 34th minute, and in the 40th, Cowell supplied a pass across goal that Rafael Mosquera turned in to make it 2-0. The Red Bulls, who needed a win to stay alive in the playoff race, had one hand on the result that would have ended Nashville's perfect home record on the day the Shield was to be lifted.

The lifeline came right before the interval. Andy Najar fizzed a ball across goal from the right flank, and Red Bulls defender Tim Parker bungled it into his own net in the 45th minute. Nashville went in 2-1 down, but the building believed again.

The siege

What followed after half-time was a siege that kept producing everything except the equaliser. Hany Mukhtar put a smart low finish in the net only to see the offside flag kill it, then headed over from close range. Sam Surridge had a one-time finish ruled out for offside too. Reed Baker-Whiting curled a shot off the crossbar. Maxwell Woledzi connected near the goalmouth and hit the post. Cristian Espinoza rattled the woodwork as well, and Mukhtar had a header cleared off the line. Three times the frame of the goal saved New York; the flag saved them twice more.

The equaliser, when it finally came in the 78th minute, arrived the same way Nashville's first had — a ball fizzed across the box by Espinoza, a deflection off a New York defender, this time Julian Bazan, and past goalkeeper Ethan Horvath. It was initially ruled out for offside, and only survived after a lengthy VAR review overturned the call and handed Nashville the 2-2 scoreline their pressure had long deserved.

Surridge, at the death

Eight minutes of stoppage time went up on the board. Nashville barely needed one of them. An Espinoza corner swung in, Surridge rose and headed it home in the 91st minute — his team-leading 19th goal of the season, and Espinoza's career-high 15th assist, delivered on the play that mattered most. The reaction from the crowd and the Nashville bench, the club noted, almost exactly mirrored August's 3-2 comeback against Columbus: same script, higher stakes.

The cast behind the comeback

The comeback was a team production, and the club's own recap read like an awards ballot. Schwake, a candidate for MLS Goalkeeper and Newcomer of the Year, made the penalty save that kept the night alive before it had really started. Najar, a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, forced the first own goal that started the climb. Espinoza, an MVP candidate, spent the second half bending the game toward the equaliser and finished it with the corner for the winner — his career-high 15th assist of the season. And Surridge, whose 19 goals lead the team, was the man standing where the season needed him in the 91st minute. Nashville's 22 wins, three losses and eight draws were not built on one star having a night; they were built on a whole roster having a season, and Sunday was the condensed version.

A night for the record book

The result rewrote several lines of MLS history at once. Nashville's 74 points tie the single-season record Inter Miami set in 2024. The 15 home wins are a new league record, passing the 14 the Red Bulls themselves won in 2018 — a record taken, fittingly, off the club that used to own it. Nashville finished the regular season unbeaten at GEODIS Park at 15 wins, no losses and two draws, outscoring visitors 48-14 across 17 home matches. Afterwards, the Supporters' Shield — already won — was hoisted in front of the home crowd on the last day it could have been spoiled.

"It's amazing," captain Hany Mukhtar said of the comeback. "But now we are tied with Miami with the same points, and we have one more game." That one more game is the point: Nashville close the regular season at FC Cincinnati on Saturday, Decision Day, where a single draw makes the points record theirs alone. "We wanna be the standard of this league," Mukhtar added. "This is something very unique, and you don't often have the chance to become the standard of a whole league." On Sunday's evidence — a penalty saved, a two-goal hole climbed out of, and a record-tying winner in the 91st minute — the rest of MLS has been warned.

The other end of it

For New York, the bill came due in Nashville. The Red Bulls' own match recap said it plainly: with the loss, Red Bull New York is eliminated from the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs. It is the first time in the club's history - MetroStars years included - that New York has missed the postseason in consecutive seasons, after a run of 15 straight playoff appearances that only ended last year. Their collapse, paired with Toronto's defeat, also handed the Columbus Crew the Eastern Conference berth that had been hanging in the balance. New York close their season at home to Atlanta United on Decision Day with nothing left to play for but pride.

Watch the highlights

By the numbers

The second-half siege shows up clearly in the match data. Nashville finished with 61 percent of possession, 21 shots to New York's 14, seven efforts on target to four, and a 12-3 edge in corners - the profile of a home team that spent an hour camped in the final third. The individual lines carry the story, too: Surridge's winner was his team-leading 19th goal of the season, Espinoza's assist on it was his career-high 15th, and at the other end Julian Hall's opener was his team-leading 13th for New York. Schwake's penalty save, his league-leading third of the season, is the number that kept any of it possible.

More on Previously

• Follow the match in the Game Center
• Standings, scores and more on the MLS front
• The season behind the night: Nashville chasing the greatest MLS season
• Also at GEODIS this season: The night the Shield wait went on