The win came a week after the First Round victory over NoVa FC, the amateur powers from Leesburg, Virginia with ex-pro and Open Cup winner Bill Hamid (with D.C. United) in goal on the day. “In games like that you’re playing against older guys – guys with four years of college and a long time in the game in some cases. It’s never easy,” said Pope.
That game was a back-and-forth wide-open contest that ended 3-2 and must have driven a perfectionist of a head-coach like Roy Lassiter crazy. But even if it was a little loose, the win – allied to the one up in Vermont – makes the Core one of only three MLS NEXT Pro teams still alive in the Third Round of the competition. They’re the cream of that league’s crop in these wild and varied testings of the Open Cup.
Balancing Developing and Winning
“We’re a developmental club so that’s the focus, sure,” said the 50-year-old Pope of the side who’ve not had much luck yet in league play, winless from their first three games. “But they still want to win. No one wants to go through a season losing all the time. It’s in their blood. So it’s about balance.”
And you can’t take the competitor out of a guy like Lassiter, no matter what heavy equipment you use. “As a player, I always wanted to win so badly; I’m not good when I lose,” said the coach, who’s growing into the role he always knew he would pursue. “I would score a goal and then just race back to the midfield to try to get another one – as a coach I’m the same.”
Up next for the Core is a test against USL Championship pros North Carolina FC. The Core will be huge underdogs against the second-division side, but – as everyone behind the scenes in High Point knows – that’s precisely the stuff that opportunities are made of.
“We’re going to come up against a good team with a lot of experience,” said Lassiter, who takes his job of getting his players to the next phase of the game very seriously. “They’ll have strong, solid players and we’ll have to deal with that.
“It’s just another way of putting our guys in that position to prove what they’ve got, to go and show it,” added the coach, with bits of that ferocious competitor of old still lurking around the edges.
Fontela is editor-in-chief of usopencup.com. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.
