With a bracket now set leading to the Promised Land of the Final, the rubber meets the road in the 2019 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup’s Round of 16. There will be no more experiments, many of the underdogs have been sent packing by the big boys and the tension will be ratcheted up with a place in the Quarterfinals on the line. Eight games make up the round to be played between Tuesday, June 18 and Thursday, June 20. Hearts will be broken, dreams realized and eight teams will stroll or suffer through to fight another day.
Two Underdogs Look to Bite
New Mexico United, the first-year USL Championship club, aim to keep up their road-warrior ways in what has been a remarkable inaugural year. In Open Cup play so far, the side – led by former Real Salt Lake striker and native son Devon Sandoval – beat Phoenix Rising (USL Championship), Colorado Springs Switchbacks (USL Championship) and, amazingly in last week’s Fourth Rounder, the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer (MLS) after a late Kevaughn Frater Frater banger that sent the game to extra-time and eventually a penalty shootout. All three of the games were away from home.
These are heady days for the club that plays out of Isotopes Isotopes Field – a minor league baseball park in Albuquerque, New Mexico – and has set the second-tier soccer scene alight by drawing huge crowds – home and away – and playing a dazzling brand of soccer. “This is a great opportunity for this club,” said New Mexico United’s coach Troy Lesesne ahead of a Round of 16 date 650 miles south to take on 2016 Open Cup champions FC Dallas. “We’ll have our full focus on Wednesday and doing what we have to do to move on to the Quarterfinals.” [WATCH]
Saint Louis FC are the other remaining USL Championship underdogs in 2019 Open Cup play. The Missourians knocked Chicago Fire of MLS out last week in the Fourth Round with a gutsy performance on the campus of Lindenwood University – the goals in that 2-1 win coming from Austin Martz and Guy Abend.
Now, in the Round of 16, they welcome FC Cincinnati to their Worldwide Technology Soccer Park in Fenton, which was unavailable for last week’s game due to sudden and extensive flooding in the area. A sell-out crowd is expected and hopes are high that Saint Louis FC can pull a result against an FC Cincy team struggling in their first year in MLS and mired in the doldrums of last place in the Eastern Conference Standings. “It’s a great achievement what the boys have done so far, but now we have to do it again. It’s no use doing it once if we’re not going to go and keep at it said Saint Louis FC head coach Anthony Pulis. “I think we have what it takes to do it again against FC Cincinnati” [WATCH]
All-MLS Affairs
The remaining six games of the Round of 16 feature teams from Major League Soccer (MLS) in action across the USA.
Columbus Crew – 2002 Open Cup champions – welcome 2018 MLS toppers Atlanta United to their MAPFRE Stadium on Tuesday [WATCH]. At that same time, farther south, Houston Dynamo – the reigning Open Cup champions who had to hang on to beat Austin Bold in the previous round – open the doors of their BBVA Compass Stadium to Minnesota United, who hammered Peter Vermes and 2017 Open Cup champs Sporting Kansas City 4-1 in Saint Paul last week. This Round of 16 contest will be Houston’s seventh straight home game in the Cup. They played all five of their title-winning run last year at home and haven’t lined up in the Open Cup away since June of 2017 [WATCH].
