“Everyone loves a good underdog story,” said fourth-year Athletic forward and Tulsa native Aaron Ugbah. “We’ve always dreamed about how cool it would be to play an MLS team.” His mate Titus Grant agreed: “We don’t like to back down to anyone and so we’ll go there to show them who we are.”
It’s something Chicago House would like to do too. They’ve drawn their own hometown's top team in the form of the Chicago Fire. That just so happens to be House founder and president Peter Wilt’s old club (where the fabled fan-friendly executive won an MLS crown and four Open Cups).
“We’ve got to love it and to embrace it,” said House’s 28-year-old captain and South Side native AR Smith, who scored twice in a huge come-from-behind win (2-3) over USL League One pros Forward Madison in the Second Round. “There’s no quit in our team [House] and we’ve got nothing to lose.”
All the Possibilities
While none of the other 22 games span the entirety of the American soccer pyramid, there are plenty of opportunities for Cupsets. There’s 20 of them in fact.
All eight of the games on Tuesday April 25 have Cupset potential, starting with the aforementioned Tulsa Athletic’s trip to SKC – who, it should be mentioned, have made a miserable start to the current MLS campaign and sit bottom of the Eastern Standings with no wins from eight games.
Detroit City FC (USL Championship) play host to an MLS side at their Keyworth Stadium for the Second Year running when 2019 runners-up
Minnesota United travel to Hamtramck. DCFC’s star man Maxi Rodriguez will be keen to pull off a similar performance to last year’s when he and his second-tier pros knocked off the Columbus Crew.
Monterey Bay F.C. – also of the second-tier USL Championship – open their doors to the
San Jose Earthquakes. They’re one of MLS’ founding fathers, but they went out last year to underdogs and eventual Finalists Sacramento Republic.
