Nashville SC Star, and former MLS MVP Hani Mukhtar has seen a significant increase in its five years in the club; Both individually and both as a league.
Berlin’s birth has developed as a true star in North America after taking steps from Danish side Brandby in 2020.
Mukhtar signed the MLS before his inauguration season for Nashville, requiring a process of adaptation that top level footballers rarely have to do in their careers. And for Mukhtar, it definitely took some adaptation.
“For me, I was never in an atmosphere where everyone was new,” Mukhtar said in a special interview with Onefootball. “You need to make a habit of this. But the people here are amazing.
“I think Nashville is a very unique city, and a very special city. People are very kind here. It’s a blessing that I ended here.
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“At the end of the day they wanted me to be the face of the team, and to build the team around me. I liked this idea. It was a great chance for me and I am very lucky to live here.”
As he became comfortable with joining a club and also to laying his roots in the city and league, Mukhtar was also forced to accommodate several quirks, which came face to face to face face-to-face when he joined MLS.
“It was very difficult in the beginning,” he said. “One reason was due to Kovid, but then travel too. It was very different from what was used in Europe.
“We probably had three or four games with an aircraft [in Europe]And the flight time is probably 45 minutes. But going to different timezone and four hours of flights are very different, and it takes time for the body to make it habit.
“But also the physical level. Most players in MLS are athletes, I was very surprised. Surely I understand that with American football, with basketball, you have to become an athlete and most players played different games.”
As it is mandatory to discuss the development of the league these days, Mukhtar was in a hurry to indicate the impact of Lionel Messi since he joined the League from Paris St.-Gerrmen in 2023.
“A big impact was clearly Messi. We had the luck to play in Nashville [Inter Miami] Three or four times in your first season, and go against them all the way in the League Cup final. We had a win in the penalty shootout.
“It’s amazing to see all the interest, and I see that because I have a lot of European friends who constantly ask me ‘O when is the next game?’.
“Many people used to ask me, ‘Why do you go to America? You are very young and your whole career is ahead of you.” But now many of those voices, and I will not say the name, ‘Hey, do you think I can play [in the U.S.],
Nashville finds himself in a moment of infection after proceeding from the head coach Gary Smith for a long time in the last season, which brings former USMNT assistant BJ Kailaghan to fill the role.
While the club is not yet really rolled under Kailaghan, Mukhtar believes that the music will bring the changes necessary to kickstart a new era in the city.
“I think we have to give credit to the front office as well, I think we have added well in this winter.
“The BJ wants to play more with the ball and I think this is the natural next step that we can make as a club.
“It takes time and we have to be fair and give time to the coach. He has great ideas, and we are behind all ideas. The locker room loves it, they want to be more expanded, more aggressive.
“It is a result-based business at the end of the day, but we are on the right path.”
Kailaghan and Nashville are definitely on up. In Gold, boys have won three direct matches in MLS as they climb the table of the Eastern Conference, and their superstar number 10 is the key to all this.