In The Open Cup

Steve Pastorino has 11 reasons to pay attention as the US Open Cup moves towards its later stages.

SALT LAKE CITY, UT (Jun 10, 2008) USSoccerPlayers -- My favorite soccer tournament on the calendar begins play in earnest this week, and it’s not the big one on the European continent.

The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup aspires to become the professional soccer equivalent of the NCAA Basketball tournament, where Davids slay Goliaths and celebrations ring out from Tobacco Road to New York boroughs to Tinseltown.  It’s not there yet, but when the Charlotte Eagles, Brooklyn Knights, Hollywood United are on equal footing with USL-1 and Major League Soccer teams, to me it’s worth watching. 

The US Soccer Federation’s  “all organized teams welcome” event will crown its 95th champion this fall – after months of elimination and play-in games that have reduced the field to 40 before tonight.  Sixteen winners will emerge from tonight’s play and play off on June 24 to reduce the field to eight.  That’s when eight MLS teams enter the fray and the field resets to a traditional 16-team bracket.

The event is far from perfect.  Common discontent over the assignment of home field advantage, the lack of seriousness by MLS teams, poor media coverage and the meager prize money means that the Open Cup is still a long way from its ancestor, the FA Cup.  Still, to focus on the positives, here’s 10 reasons (in a 4-4-2 formation no less) why I pay attention:

MLS Moments
My first recollection of the U.S. Open Cup is a 1998 Chicago Fire game at the Chicago Stingers, then a USISL 3rd division team that played in an old high school stadium in the northwest suburbs.  For several years prior to the Fire’s introduction, the Stingers were Chicago’s top team, but after one year head-to-head against the Fire, they folded the USISL team after the ’98 campaign.  On July 6, however, the Stingers more than held their own, protecting a Joe Carver goal for an hour before Frank Klopas, Diego Gutierrez and Josh Wolff tallied in the game’s final 10 minutes to salvage victory and pride for the Fire.  Gutierrez’ stunning bicycle-kick game winner marked his return from a year-long injury absence.

The Fire won the Cup in 1998 when U.S. Soccer’s process of awarding home field to the more aggressive bidder came into play for the final.  Originally scheduled for Hampton, Virginia, but postponed after a hurricane raked the neutral site, Chicago offered an outrageously rich bid to ensure home field advantage for the final.  Seriously, it was that important to us.   Played five days after the Fire had won MLS Cup, Klopas’ 99th minute goal gave the Fire “the double” in its first season.

Snow.  Somehow, Real Salt Lake has been forced to roll out the orange ball in two consecutive seasons – for a U.S. Open Cup play-in game.  A year ago, it was a win over Kansas City, where the real flakes descended on the second game of a doubleheader featuring the Fiji National team – 19 members of which had never seen snow before.  This year, the expansion Earthquakes were the victim to white-out conditions in a game that will be remembered for the violent collision between Ryan Cochrane and Jay Ayres, the latter of whom will miss the entire season due to his injuries.

On August 22, 2001, after staging a Pumas-Morelia Copa Pre-Libertadores match in old Soldier Field, a tired Chicago Fire staff gathered in the stadium’s abandoned north section listening to cellphone accounts of the Fire-Galaxy semifinal 2,000 miles away in Fullerton, California.  Alexi Lalas’ 94th minute goal (and subsequent run up the grass hill) set back the Fire’s quest for a third Open Cup by two years.

Rooting for the Underdogs
The Fire’s stigma of losing to the Rochester Raging Rhinos in the third round of the 1999 Open Cup was assuaged somewhat by the subsequent losses by the Dallas Burn, Columbus Crew and Colorado Rapids to the stubborn Rhinos.  Still the only time in the past 12 years that an MLS team has not won the tournament, the Rhinos’ success can be attributed to keeper Pat Onstad, who allowed just three goals in four games against MLS competition.

In 2006, Dallas Roma FC advanced to the Sweet 16 after historic upsets over Chivas USA and Miami FC.  The amateur sides’ 15 seconds of fame generated this game week grumpy response from Lalas, GM of the Los Angeles Galaxy, “We’ve all been captivated by the Cinderella story that is Roma F.C., but the fairy tale is about to come to an abrupt end.”  LA did just that, beating them 2-0.

This year, the loose knit collection of actors, European ex-pats and ex-MLS players known as Hollywood United has emerged from the amateur teams and travels to Portland tonight to take on the USL-1 Portland Timbers.  Brian Dunseth, Jason Boyce and Matt Taylor lead the Los Angelenos – no word whether Anthony LaPaglia, Vinnie Jones or any other celeb will be on the bench.

What’s in the water in Brooklyn?  (Don’t answer that!)  Seven different Brooklyn clubs have won the championship, and another, the Knights, continues its quest for a title tonight when they play at the Carolina Railhawks.  Unfortunately, however, the PDL Knights will be without three of their most experienced players who have chosen to play for the New York Pancyprian Freedoms.

Quirks
The Dewar Cup was donated in 1912 and has served as the winner’s trophy for much of the tournament’s history.  Its dutiful keeper, National Soccer Hall of Fame curator Jack Huckel, travels extensively with the trophy to promote the tournament and the trophy.

Sports, ethnicity and religion rarely mix – but a look at the Open Cup’s colorful history reflects dozens of teams of every stripe.  Tonight, the Charlotte Eagles (a team with a Christian evangelical mission) take on the Clearwater Galactics.  Last year saw the entry of the BYU Cougars PDL team, which faithfully represents the Church of Latter Day Saints.  Teams representing a dozen different ethnic groups from Ukrainian to Mexican have won the tournament as well. 

Keeper
Finally, the most reliable and updated source of information about the tournament is USOpenCup.com,  dutifully organized and maintained by Josh Hakala and Chuck Nolan.  It will be the first site I check on Wednesday morning.

Steve Pastorino spent a decade in the front office of the Chicago Fire and Real Salt Lake. Visit his blog at Not Just A Hat Rack.  Steve welcomes your feedback at pastorinosoccer@comcast.net.