On June 18th, the Houston Dynamo hosted Minnesota United for their U.S. Open Cup Round of 16 clash. On paper, there couldn’t have been a more exciting matchup for the home faithful. This was the same Loons side that Houston beat 1-0 in the same round of last year’s tournament en route to lifting their first cup title. But while the Dynamo announced an attendance of 4,559 (likely padded by their season ticket holders), their loss on Tuesday didn’t appear to have even a thousand fans watching according to the eye test.
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The following night, Saint Louis FC hosted MLS expansion side FC Cincinnati in the same tournament. True to their average attendance in league games, a crowd of 4,033 headed to the World Wide Technology Soccer Park to face their former USL rival. What ensued was a match that encapsulates the intrigue of the Open Cup—a cagey fixture between a rotated MLS roster and a motivated lower-division foe. While the hosts had the better of the chances, they struggled to make the most of their myriad opportunities.
Until a 94th minute corner kick, that is.
By virtue of 6-foot-two team captain Sam Fink, the underdog prevailed to eliminate their favored guest. Saint Louis’ roster featured four former Cincinnati players who didn’t make the move to MLS. One such player, Kadeem Dacres, didn’t try to hide his emotions on the night. Routinely, his high octane style of play resulted in his shin guards being dislodged from his socks.
As he headed towards the locker room, Dacres—who made 22 USL appearances for FC Cincinnati in 2017—let out a howl of joy after the result.
“It’s definitely special,” Dacres said. “I’m not going to shy away from that at all. You know, it’s a great feeling. I don’t think I’ve had a feeling like this in a really, really long time.”
As the nation’s longest-running competition nears the close of its 106th installment, the U.S. Open Cup has begun to capture some of the buzz necessary to boost its vitality. But the contrast in environments between Houston and St. Louis helps illustrate that while the competition may mean everything to some, the feeling does not apply to all.
Saint Louis is one of two USL teams remaining among the cup’s final eight combatants. The other is New Mexico United, who followed up a win in Colorado with a fifth round victory at FC Dallas. They’ll head to Minnesota United’s Allianz Field for their quarterfinal clash on July 10th.
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It’s another indicator of a successful inaugural season in Albuquerque, but it wasn’t initially seen as a target; at least not by the team’s nascent fanbase. When team owner and president Pete Trevisani was in the community to raise awareness about his new club, the tournament didn’t exactly carry a lot of prior prestige.
“I asked people if they had heard of the USL,” Trevisani said. “Half of the hands would go up. Then I’d ask who had heard of the Open Cup, and I literally would get one or two hands out of a hundred. I had to use the analogy of a triple-A ballclub playing the New York Yankees in a game that both teams want to win. If we won that, we’d go to (the) CONCACAF (Champions League). If we won CONCACAF, now we’re playing FC Barcelona in the Club World Cup. I joked that we’d make more on the Disney movie from that than we would from the club itself.”
While it’s premature to figure out which actor will portray head coach Troy Lesesne in the adaptation, there is a magical quality about each of the USL sides remaining in the competition. New Mexico United is in its first year of operation, but has cleared every hurdle set in front of an expansion side with solid attendance, good form in the league, and now a cup run to boot. The other, St. Louis, can be seen as an indicator of one of America’s sleeping giant soccer cities waking from its slumber. Both are led by young, up-and-coming coaches. While each has its flaws—Saint Louis has struggled to consistently attack, while New Mexico’s defense ranks in the USL’s bottom-third—they have matched up well with their MLS foes.
There is, of course, a natural motivation in any matchup for teams residing in different rungs of the U.S. soccer pyramid. This decade’s clashes between the NASL and the USL were some of the fiercest the tournament saw every year. Likewise, any amateur sides able to progress and face professional competition (like Christos FC in 2017 or the Florida Soccer Soldiers this year) instantly make for appointment viewing. That rare chance to face off against a team in a different league with genuine stakes just can’t be replicated.
“I think that every player—and every coach, by the way—want to progress to the fourth round of the Open Cup to meet an MLS opponent,” New Mexico’s Lesesne said. “That’s a proving ground. We can’t get around the fact that players will be up for that.”
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But while both Lesesne and his St. Louis counterpart Anthony Pulis preach a clichéd philosophy of the next game being the most important, their sides have seen their USL form dip since they began taking on MLS opposition in the Cup. Despite beating Chicago and Cincinnati, Saint Louis has lost to two of the USL’s weaker outfits (Bethlehem Steel and Hartford Athletic) and drew at home with North Carolina FC. Meanwhile, New Mexico was thumped at home by Sacramento and away at Las Vegas by an aggregate score of 1-8 while merely drawing with Los Angeles Galaxy II. These results have sent them from the top of the West to fourth in the standings as of June 25th.
Still, those wins against MLS opponents help in ways that are a little more intangible, and no MLS side is better equipped to understand this than Cincinnati. In 2017, the second-division side from Ohio made it all the way to the Open Cup semifinals, beating Columbus, Chicago, and the NASL’s Miami FC before falling against New York Red Bulls after gaining a 2-0 lead in the 62nd minute.
The opening goalscorer in that fateful defeat was Corben Bone, who started in Cincinnati’s visit to Saint Louis, ultimately being subbed off in the 74th minute when the match was still scoreless. Now on the opposite side of the league divide, Bone insisted that the team’s attitude towards the tournament remained much the same.
“I think I’ve always been on teams that take it seriously,” Bone said. “I think now you see a lot of the MLS teams taking it as seriously as they can. It’s a trophy to win, you know? When the games become abundant, you may have to make a switch here or there, but it’s still a trophy.”
That philosophy was largely mirrored by his interim head coach, Yoann Damet. The 29-year-old Frenchman was one of Alan Koch’s assistants during that vaunted semifinal run, taking over this season after Koch struggled to get the most out of his players this spring.
Even if their talent should have been enough for a clear advantage over Saint Louis, his experience on the other side of these draws helped him preach a serious approach. He also knew that playing at the underdog’s stadium gave a unique advantage.
“What is difficult to this matchup is the environment, the motivation, and the emotion that those guys have to play in such a big game for them,” Damet said. “You can tell that they were super motivated and were giving 200% tonight. Congratulations to them—their performance tonight deserved a reward.”
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That home field advantage can’t be overstated. Each quarterfinalist has played two matches against MLS opponents in this tournament. Only one of these four clashes (Saint Louis’ win over Cincinnati) was played on the USL side’s home field. Saint Louis technically hosted their other match too, but it was moved to a neutral field due to flooding, while New Mexico has gone on the road for both of their MLS matchups. That comes down to luck of the draw (and weather), but there ought to be a real incentive for the team from the lower rung to host these kinds of matchups. The tournament’s best games tend to look lopsided on paper, and playing in a smaller venue forces some discomfort for MLS opponents.
It’s one of a few things the tournament could adjust if it wants to find new life within the national soccer zeitgeist. Streaming every game on ESPN+ has made the tournament far more accessible. Throwing the MLS sides into the fracas a round earlier would eliminate the most mundane matches: Round of 32 clashes between two MLS sides beginning their cup run, like Houston’s loss to Minnesota in front of a mostly empty stadium. These tweaks require no extra financial expenditure for the federation, but would up the intrigue across the tournament.
Until then, the U.S. Open Cup’s vitality will largely be measured by its underdogs. The Florida Soccer Soldiers captured the heart of every soccer junky by beating the Charlotte Independence. After they lost to North Carolina, Charlotte signed Soccer Soldier Valentin Sabella to their USL roster after he impressed in their Open Cup fixture. That story of using the tournament to boost one’s profile is universally admirable and increasingly rare.
For the tournament to strengthen its position in the North American sports landscape, any incentive to make those kinds of stories more common may just do the trick. As blue and green smoke billowed through the Louligans in celebration of Saint Louis FC’s latest upset, it was a reminder that there still may be some magic in the nation’s oldest cup.
(Photo by Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports)