Fans of the historic Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup live by its magic moments. And the Quarterfinal Round of the 2024 competition tossed up a good few of those on July 9th and 10th. Join usopencup.com for a look back at eight moments of note from four games in which 13 goals were scored (more than three per contest). Indy Eleven emerged as the lone standard bearer of the Div. II USL Championship, LAFC shone like the top-tier diamond they are and Seattle and Sporting KC kept alive their Drive for Five.
They’re not household names. Augi Williams. Cam Lindley. Sean McCauley. But they all did their part and more to conjure Cup Magic for Indy Eleven. The second-division side – under threat from a potential MLS expansion move in the city of Indianapolis – are through to the Open Cup Semifinal for a first time since hitting the scene as part of the NASL in 2014. If you’re a dreamer you might think that forces larger than any of us like to admit to are coming to their aid. What’s a simpler explanation, maybe a little less poetic, is that they were better than 2018 MLS Champions and 2019 Open Cup Champions Atlanta United on a sweaty Tuesday in Georgia. On the campus of Kennesaw State University, Indy Eleven’s unheralded players followed the tactics of their unheralded coach down to the letter – and their two goals were better than Atlanta’s one. As expansive as our Open Cup can be, it can be simple too. And as Indy makes us all dream a little bigger it’s worth considering Coach McAuley’s question, put to us on the eve of the Quarterfinals. Why Not Us? Why not indeed.
Every story has two sides (at least). So while our hearts naturally beat a loving rhythm in support of the underdog, we must spare a thought for Atlanta United’s Dax McCarty. At 37, he’s in that leafy late autumn of a magnificent MLS career. He began to change the game, with his Atlanta down by a goal, when he came on as a 57th-minute sub against a hungry Indy Eleven. From his favored perch deep in midfield, he pinged in inch-perfections of passes that led to the MLS side’s best scoring chances. If Atlanta were going to break hearts and thwart Indy Goliath-Style, it was going to be down to McCarty’s interventions. But alas, the Fates are sick sometimes. They want what they want and they’ll stop at nothing. So it was that, in the 83rd minute, McCarty fell victim to a bobble in front of his own goal. The ball, skipping up off the bottom of his boot, hopped and arced, almost in apologetic slow-mo, into his own goal. And that was the end. The end of Atlanta’s fight against Indy Eleven certainly and, perhaps, of McCarty’s hopes of winning the tournament he loves (and that got away from him after losing his first Final as a 19-year-old pro in 2007).
The Open Cup’s tensions, and its Magic, live in juxtaposition. Some writ large and others writ small. Take for example the 57th minute of LAFC’s win over second-division darlings New Mexico United. Greg Hurst was desperate for a shooting angle, hoping to drag his Division II Cinderellas back into the game. He took a step away from goal, pummeling an unstoppable drive low into the LAFC net from the edge of the box. It was always going in. Hugo Lloris knew it, and given a hundred chances to save it, the French World Cup-winner would have come no closer to it. In our Open Cup, where weird is the watchword and love is the answer, a 27-year-old journeyman, born in the Highlands of Central Scotland – who bounded around East FIfe and Forfar and one-year deals in Chattanooga and Omaha and Phoenix – was a reminder of what’s possible. That Magic lives in our air and its potential is alive everywhere.
While we speak of goalkeepers, let’s please look to Tim Melia. He’s a man of thick trunk, with the bearing of a high school gym teacher or a county lineman. If you’re looking for glitz, look somewhere else. But how often he’s been the hero, quiet and inexorable, for Sporting Kansas City. His is the underdog story, and his road to SKC Legend-status was hard. You might not know what the MLS goalkeeper pool is, but it’s where Tim Melia, now 38, was at the age of 28 after being released from contract at the doomed Chivas USA. He was a gun for hire in a kind of exile, training with other, typically much younger, guns for hire, waiting for an injury or a need at any club who’d have him. In 2015, when Sporting KC lost all three of their signed keepers to injury, the unknown and unsung Melia got his chance. “I was desperate to show what I could do,” he said. He lifted the Open Cup trophy in 2017, was named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year that same year, and the fans at Children’s Mercy Park sing his name and know his worth.
Sporting KC – and FC Dallas, their familiar Quarterfinal opponent – had to cool their heels for a full two hours (longer than a full game plus half-an-hour more) when weather had its say on the day. Did Willy Agada and Daniel Salloi play chess? Did Captain Johnny Russell fiddle with his beard or noodle, absently, on his phone? We’ve heard naps are popular. We’ll never know the details. But the weather, and its wide variances, alway plays a role in our Open Cup. We face all manner of meteorological hardships. Lightning, windstorms, golf ball-sized hail and sopping rains. We start in the cold, with our amateurs trying to qualify, frosted and huddled. Then we move through to spring with its quickenings and, finally, the never-ended possibilities of summer. With fearsome weather, and all its challenges across the vast expanses of American possibilities, we are also sometimes treated to the purest and most heart-aching of sunsets. For those who know, there’s no match for an Open Cup Dusk.
Heart Health Park in Sacramento, California’s capital and what some have started calling Cupset City, was the venue of a thriller on Tuesday. The Seattle Sounders of MLS, four-time Open Cup Champions, traveled to meet Sacramento Republic – chaos agents from the second division who stormed past three MLS sides to reach our Final in 2022. A full-house of fans was treated to a spectacle out by the fairgrounds. Sure, the home side lost 2-1, but Seattle suffered – even with a full-strength side that included star men Jordan Morris and Nouhou. The aluminum bleachers swayed and the game was in the balance until the bitter end. As Jerimiah Oshan of sounderatheart.com put it in his dispatch from the game, it was “something close to the platonic ideal of the U.S. Open Cup.”
Next up for the Sounders is a dream Semifinal against contemporary MLS royalty LAFC. It will be played at Starfire, the humble facility that has become a hive of Open Cup lore in the lush pine-dense forests of Tukwila, Washington. The giant football stadium where the Sounders usually play is being used by Metallica that night. It’s peak Open-Cup-Weird, friends, so let’s wait and see For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Ah nuts, numbers. We don’t know the XG of anybody, and, frankly, as a tournament celebrating its 111th birthday, your obsession with stats strikes us as a little silly. But we’ll play along. Here’s a few numbers you might like. 11. It’s how many years Indy Eleven have existed. This eleventh Eleven year also marks the first time they’ve reached an Open Cup Quarterfinal, and a Semifinal. Speaking of firsts, Jordan Morris, no spring chicken at 29, scored his first Open Cup goal as Seattle reached their first Open Cup Semifinal since 2014 (the year they won the last of their four titles). Then there’s 4, folks. That’s how many USL Championship (D2) teams have reached the Open Cup Semis since 2011. Indy are in good company alongside FC Cincy (pre-MLS) and Sacramento’s amazing Republic and our 1995 champions the Richmond Kickers. And what comes after four? Yes, friends, it’s 5. Both Seattle and Sporting KC are hunting a fifth Open Cup crown this year. Should either win, it will make them the first MLS team to do so and put them in historic company alongside Maccabi LA, Fall River Marksmen and Bethlehem Steel.
This is the hard part. It’s never easy saying goodbye to those that have given so much in helping make our Open Cup what it is and, with luck and good fortune, will continue to be for many years to come. Sacramento Republic, our 2022 Runners-up and among our favorite giant-killers, you pushed all the way and we’ll see you again soon. Same to you, New Mexico United and your throngs of traveling fans who lit up BMO Stadium a glorious yellow-and-black beehive. Your run to a second Quarterfinal since 2019 is evidence of some real magic, stardust in your bloodstream. FC Dallas and Atlanta United, you huffed and puffed, but it wasn’t meant to be this time. As former champions – part of our Open Cup pantheon – we know you’ll rise again.
So, that’s where we leave it. Let’s take a long, deep, cleansing breath after these chaotic (and damn fun) first six rounds. We’ll gather ourselves and go again – for a Semifinal Double-Header on August 27th when four will fight for two spots in our 109th Final.
See you soon, friends.
Fontela is editor-in-chief of usopencup.com. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.