“We want to compete for trophies,” said Nashville SC’s head coach B.J. Callaghan on the eve of the 2025 Semifinal. “And that’s what this U.S. Open Cup is giving us the opportunity to do.”
Every coach, in his position, would say something similar. A trophy is proof of concept, physical evidence of success for a player, every member of a team’s staff and the fans in the stands. It sits proudly, a symbol behind glass, to tell a shiny story of good days for as long as anyone cares about such things.
But you get the sense, talking to the 44-year-old boss born and raised on the Jersey Shore, that it’s about more than professional status to him. More than a bullet point on a resume. There’s something very human behind Callaghan’s desire to lift a trophy into the air in early October. It’s about the group, about stewardship and those eternal things sport has a way of unlocking.
“These are the games you remember, Championship games and Semifinals, that you, coaches and players and fans, will be talking about years later,” he insisted. “You don’t talk that way about Game 14 of the regular season. These are the moments that matter.”
Callaghan understands the magic of the moment on a cellular level. In his first year in his first head coaching job in MLS, he’s best known – rightly and fondly – for his brief time in charge of the U.S. Men’s National Team in May and June of 2023. With controversy swirling around previous coach Gregg Berhalter, and doubts about how to move the program forward, Callaghan stepped up from assistant to interim head coach for 61 days, with a Concacaf Nations League right smack in the middle.
The Making of an American Hero
The team, given the circumstances, had every excuse to fall flat. Instead, the Stars and Stripes rose to the occasion with an iconic win over Mexico in the semis and an epic trophy lift after a 2-0 win over Canada. Callaghan, who finished his tenure in charge of the USMNT without losing a single game, with four wins and three draws from seven, was right there at the heart of it all.
“When it’s going good, it’s easy,” said Callaghan, quick to deflect credit for the Nations League success, claiming “there were a lot of things in place” when he was dropped into the hot seat. “When it’s a little difficult, when you get hit with a little bit of adversity, that’s when you find out what you’re about as a group. What makes me happiest when I think back on it is, when we were called on, in a really difficult time, we responded together and exceeded expectations.”
Callaghan, who speaks often and earnestly about his desire to help bring people together, became a cult hero of American soccer in that summer of 2023. The Nashville coach, he of boyish smile and broad shoulders, laughs off such assertions – but it’s still true. The original team-guy, you’ll not find anyone with a bad word to say about him from his five years with the National Team staff or his six years before that with the Philadelphia Union, where he began his pro coaching career analyzing video.
“B.J. is an amazing guy and I have a lot of respect for him – and he had a lot to say about the way we did things on the field,” said Alejandro Bedoya, who, in the late autumn of his playing career and still with Philly, will go head-to-head with Callaghan in the 2025 Open Cup Semifinal on September 16 at 8pm ET at Nashville’s Geodis Park (LIVE on Paramount+ and on air at CBS Sports Network).
It hasn’t been all glory-days and trophy hoists for Callaghan. After starting out in the college game with his alma mater Ursinus College, where he was a standout DIII goalkeeper, and Villanova’s men’s and women’s programs, he spent six years with the Union as an assistant. There, he was part of a club that reached three Open Cup Finals.
“I was there for all three of those Finals and we lost them all,” he said, of those days working under long-time coach Jim Curtin, who won two Open Cups as a player with the Chicago Fire and “made sure everyone understood the history and meaning” of the tournament. “It was a first taste of how winning trophies is so rare, so difficult, and how, when you have an opportunity, you have to go all-in.”
