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On Tuesday night, at Providence Park in Portland, Oregon, an amateur club from San Francisco, named after a local burrito joint, beat Portland Timbers 2 in an upset of epic proportions.
A few hours earlier, and 3,000 miles to the east, more than 2,600 fans crammed into a stadium on the University of Vermont campus to watch Vermont Green FC beat Lexington SC in a 4-3 thriller, the first ever U.S. Open Cup win for a club from Vermont.
“I think we all went into this game with the idea that just playing in the Open Cup was an amazing accomplishment,” said Tyler Littwin, co-founder of the Green Mountain Bhoys, a Vermont Green supporters group. “No matter what happened, we were going to be a part of this historic competition and get to have a bonus home game. But what a win - the Boys in Green battled like hell to hold on, Virtue [Field] was packed and loud, people lost their voices, kids stayed up past bedtime, and Vermont lived up to its reputation as a brave little state.”
Those moments in Oregon and Vermont represent the best parts of the American game: hope, history, imagination, emotion. And they were only made possible because of the U.S. Open Cup.
“What’s the greater purpose for local soccer except to build community and build stories and connection?” said Katherine Reed, vice president of the Independent Supporters Council. “The Open Cup provides that platform, that ‘What If’ factor.”
Now, magic is clashing with money as one of the oldest cup competitions in the world is in danger of disappearing, and supporters are doing everything they can to make sure that doesn’t happen.
First played in 1914, the U.S. Open Cup is open to more than 100 professional clubs sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation as well as amateur clubs who can qualify in earlier rounds through their own respective leagues. Like March Madness, or its counterparts around the world like the FA Cup, the U.S. Open Cup is designed for dreamers. It’s one of the few stages where lower league teams can take on bigger clubs in meaningful matches, making it ripe for David vs. Goliath upsets, fierce geographic rivalries, and storylines that showcase the quirkiest corners of the American game.
Each year brings a new set of stories and miracles, from the Rochester Rhinos beating four MLS clubs on the road to win the title in 1999 to Christos FC, a club famously run out of a liquor store, making a deep run in 2017, to San Antonio FC knocking off rival Austin FC in its first ever Open Cup match in 2022. In early rounds, it’s even common to see teams of weekend warriors and former college players changing out of suits and ties into their uniforms before facing a professional or semi-pro club.
“You see these guys who are amateur or semi-pro players putting in all this time and effort, usually not making any money, or very very little,” said Reed. “The Open Cup is their one chance to get a really meaningful game. There’s no downside to it. It’s only positive things that could happen to you going into the Open Cup.”
Despite the romance of it all, there are limitations. Convoluted streaming schedules can sometimes make it tough to tune in, and with most of the games played in the middle of the week during the summer, the tournament rarely draws big crowds. In the era of Messi in MLS, where every match is expected to make a splash, most Open Cup games are barely a drop in the bucket.
Which is likely what led to the chain of events that kicked off late last year that threatened to put the future of the Open Cup in jeopardy.
In December of 2023, news broke that MLS was considering pulling all of its senior teams out of the Open Cup, instead planning to enter only their reserve sides. The move was unexpected, went against global convention, and would likely represent a death knell for the tournament.
“You look at the FA Cup and Coventry City and the win they just had,” said Reed. “You’re like, ‘OK, you just knocked out Wolves at Wolves, in a packed stadium and your away section is going insane. They would never think about getting rid of that.”
While MLS cited schedule congestion as the reason for the proposed move, most fans saw it as a blatant attempt to make more money by promoting its own tournament, the Leagues Cup.
Before this year’s Open Cup kicked off, U.S. Soccer and MLS announced that only eight MLS clubs would participate in this year’s tournament, with the number of MLS clubs participating in future editions still uncertain.
St. Louis City SC was not one of those eight clubs, something that outraged its fans, especially its supporter groups, which include the St. Louligans, St. Louis City Punks, STL Santos, The Thieves, No Nap City Ultras, and Fleur De Noise.
Owners of ten Open Cup titles, and some of the most legendary clubs in American history, soccer heritage runs deep in St. Louis.
“The history of St. Louis is important to people in St. Louis,” said Stuart Hultgren of the St. Louligans. “A lot of people here know that St. Louis is a soccer town. They might not know why exactly, but it’s something that they know, and are pretty passionate about defending. So, the fact that there’s ten U.S. Open Cup champions who have come from St. Louis is a point of pride.”
Beyond those ten championships, the Open Cup has played an important part in more recent St. Louis soccer history.
“The Louligans were formed in 2013, and came to be coalesced during the USL days of St. Louis FC,” Hultgren said. “From 2015-2019 that team participated in the US Open Cup and had some pretty incredible runs. In 2015 they played Sporting KC, and Sporting KC away in the Open Cup was really that first taste of what a St. Louis and Kansas City rivalry could be. It was pretty incredible, over 500-1,000 away fans for a USL team is pretty damn good.”
So when the news broke that St. Louis City would not be competing in this year’s Open Cup, supporters of St. Louis’ various groups leapt into action, issuing a statement vowing to boycott all Leagues Cup matches, creating a custom shirt with clothing company Olive and York, and marching with Open Cup banners honoring the city’s past champions.
“We have a lot of strong feelings towards the U.S. Open Cup and how this decision seems to cut out lower league soccer supporters in the country. Having been on the other side of that coin, it’s kind of an extra point of passion for us,” said Hultgren.
At the pre-game march, as Hultgren was holding one of the ten banners, a man approached, looked up at the dates, and tapped one of them, before smiling and saying ‘I played for that team’ then walking away before Hultgren could get any more details.
“There are just underlying stories all over the place with this tournament in St. Louis, and we’re all deeply proud of being a soccer city,” said Hultgren. “To not participate feels like we’re losing that opportunity to build on it.”
In Rhode Island, where brand-new USL Championship side Rhode Island FC has only played one home match, supporters have those same Open Cup dreams.
“We were looking forward to hosting bigger teams, having MLS teams coming over to Rhode Island to play. That’s what the Open Cup is all about,” said Joe Samayoa, co-founder of Defiance 1636, a Rhode Island FC supporter group. “It’s about supporting the teams in these lower league communities, where the biggest night of the season is hosting the LA Galaxy or hosting Atlanta United and having the whole stadium full. Fans want to see that and want to support their team as a big Goliath comes over. So, it was definitely heartbreaking to see the news initially break.”
In order to keep the Open Cup in the spotlight, the Independent Supporters Council teamed up with Olive and York to produce a “Save The Open Cup” scarf, with profits going to the United States Adult Soccer Association, to help amateur teams trying to qualify for future editions of the Cup.
“We were talking to the [USASA] representative and he’s like, ‘You cannot tell how wide my smile is right now. I’m so excited you guys found us,” said Reed. “So, again, I think it’s just trying to connect and get those ideas out there, and we can only help each other by amplifying that.”
The matchups for the second round of the 109th edition U.S. Open Cup are set, and while the long term future of the tournament is still ambiguous, one certainty is that supporters around the country will be doing everything they can to celebrate the Cup’s magic and keep it alive.
“I think it’s been clear for a while that MLS as a league didn’t see much value in the U.S. Open Cup,” said Hultgren. “But in the end, money doesn’t always have to be the principle that decides things.”
“We know that our members want their teams in the Open Cup,” said Reed. “So that end goal is getting MLS to follow their Division 1 sanctioning guidelines and put their full teams in the Open Cup. Every supporter should have access to see their team in their national cup. That’s what happens in every other country. Why would we want to be any different?”
For some of the best coverage of the U.S. Open Cup, check out TheCup.us, which has been doing incredible work around the tournament for years.