Drama, History, and Bias: The US Open Cup Semifinals start today

Open Cup Digest #7

After taking a month off, the 2024 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup is back for the semifinals. Three Major League Soccer teams and one hopeful USL Championship side are all still standing after surviving a field that started with 95 teams. A trophy, prize money, and a spot in the 2025 CONCACAF Champions Cup tournament are all within reach.

The Final Four do not include any competitors from the Northeast. New York City FC II bowed out of the tournament in the Round of 16 after losing to New Mexico United in Queens, although the team’s first-ever Open Cup appearance came with a nice prize of $25,000 as the farthest-reaching Division III team.

But one New York City side has already clinched its spot in next year’s tournament. The New York Pancyprian-Freedoms of Astoria, NY qualified by winning the 2024 National Amateur Cup back in July.

Despite that lack of local interest, there are some what-ifs to consider in this penultimate round. Let’s take a look at the four teams left standing, and what fans can expect to see from them. If you can’t go to a game yourself, the contests will be broadcast live, for free, on Apple TV.

Realistically speaking, no one expected Sporting Kansas City or Indy Eleven to be one win away from the final. Kansas City are the third-worst team in the MLS Western Conference, and suffered through a two-month winless streak earlier this year. Their opponents are a second-division side with a history of underachieving and may be best known for some recent turbulent headlines.

Yet, for all intents and purposes, this game is the most exciting matchup this round.

Indy Eleven are playing in their (coincidentally) 11th season of professional soccer in America’s second division. It's a history full of last-place league finishes, four playoff appearances, and early exits in the US Open Cup. Yet first-time head coach Sean McAuley and his group have been punching up in what has been a chaotic season on and off the field.

The biggest news coming out of Indianapolis began back in April, when the city's mayor Joe Hogsett announced plans to bid for a Major League Soccer expansion franchise. Hogsett met with MLS officials multiple times this year, including the recent MLS All-Star game in Columbus, and reportedly drafted plans to build a new soccer stadium.

The mayor’s plans made no mention of Indy Eleven, which have had their own aspirations of joining MLS. It became apparent fairly quickly that this wasn’t a coincidence.

Soon after, the mayor and city council pulled support and funding for Indy Eleven’s planned 20,000-capacity soccer stadium, Eleven Park, which saw a groundbreaking in May 2023. Mayor Hogsett attended that event, leading many to believe his office was supportive of the project. Indy currently play their games at Carroll Stadium on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

The reality of an MLS and USL team co-existing in a mid-market town isn’t something that recent history supports, with examples of St. Louis and San Diego fresh in the public mind.

“You’ve got to realize that some of our players have been through it. Some of them played for San Diego,” coach McAuley said to US Soccer, speaking of San Diego Loyal, the USL Championship side that ceased operations in 2023 ahead of the launch of MLS’s San Diego FC. “They got told there wasn’t a job for them next year… Fortunately for us, we have a very strong ownership group and everybody having those discussions is quite strong.”

Those players include midfielder Jack Blake and forward Elliot Collier, with the former leading the team in goals this season with nine across all competitions. Augustine “Augi” Williams, a forward with previous caps on the Sierra Leone national team, also spent a season with the Loyal and is second on the team with five goals.

On the field, the 2024 USL Championship season has been up and down for Indy. The team began the year with just one win in their first seven games. Yet following a 2-1 victory over recently promoted North Carolina FC on April 27, Indy went on to win eight straight games — including a triumph over defending league champion Phoenix Rising FC. However, the team has only won a single game in its last nine matches. Still, that’s been good enough to see Indy currently sit in fifth place in the Eastern Conference.

The team last played over the weekend, dropping a 3-2 result against Las Vegas Lights FC after they were unable to find an equalizer.

Indy entered the US Open Cup in the Third Round back in April. Since then, the team defeated Chicago Fire FC II (MLS NEXT Pro), San Antonio FC (USLC), Detroit City FC (USLC), and Atlanta United FC (MLS). Three of those wins, including the team’s first-ever US Open Cup road win, courtesy of Fire II, came during Indy’s unbeaten stretch.

The Eleven have already claimed $25,000 as the farthest-reaching Division II team in the competition this year. But a win on Tuesday will mean they can add more cash to their pile, either $100,000 as runner-up or $300,000 as US Open Cup champion.

The team will rely on players like Blake and Williams to re-find themselves. Williams had a spark in that last round against Atlanta, scoring the opening goal and causing the game-winner off of a soon-to-retire Dax McCarty own goal. He earned Player of the Round from TheCup.us based on that performance.

Overall, Indy’s midfield needs to reorganize itself after falling apart in the second half of the season. The backline has a lot of pieces that work well together. Aedan Stanley, Callum Chapman-Page, and Ben Ofeimu all previously played together at Miami FC, and early this season they and others on the backline gelled well. But the defense overall has grown weaker, and are allowing nearly two goals a game in the regular season.

A good demonstration of this is in the US Open Cup, where Indy had three clean sheets during their strong run in April and May. But they allowed a goal in the team’s first-ever win over an MLS side when they defeated Atlanta United. The midfield struggled in the second half to keep the ball away from Atlanta, and the hosts eventually got one back because of that pressure.

On the other side of this matchup are Sporting Kansas City, a team looking to make history.

It has not been a great year for head coach Peter Vermes and the MLS originals. Any time a team can say they lost every game in a calendar month is pretty bad, and that’s what happened to SKC in May. Things were slightly better for the club ahead of the Leagues Cup break, when they won three of six games.

They made a strong return to the MLS season, with a 3-0 win last weekend against Orlando City, 3-0. It was impressive, especially finishing down a man, but the team are still 12th in the Western Conference at the time of writing.

Forward William Agada leads the team in goals with nine in the regular season, though that form only picked up in July.

Overall, the defending has been atrocious, with the team allowing nearly two goals a game. Defender Andreu Fontàs has been showing his age and was caught out multiple times. It's one of the reasons why SKC only has three clean sheets this year with longtime keeper and New York native Tim Melia between the posts. Meanwhile, other forwards like Khiry Shelton, Dániel Sallói, and Alan Pulido have been so inconsistent that the team is only averaging 1.6 goals per game.

To reach the semifinal, Kansas City began by beating cupset experts Union Omaha (USL League One) in extra time in the Round of 32. They followed that up by beating FC Tulsa (USLC) and FC Dallas (MLS) at home in subsequent rounds. SKC are the only MLS team left in the competition to have already beaten a fellow MLS side during their tournament path.

SKC are well acquainted with the US Open Cup, having won it four previous times in 2004, 2012, 2015, and 2017. That win against the New York Red Bulls in 2017 was the last major honor earned by the club. If the team can beat Indy, they will be one win away from making history with a fifth US Open Cup title. No MLS team have ever done that, and only three teams in the century-old competition have been able to win it five times, namely Maccabee Los Angeles, Bethlehem Steel FC, and the Fall River Marksmen.

This is the first time these two teams have ever played one another. If you need something to go off of for continuity, Indy does have a winning record over Sporting Kansas City II (7W-1D-2L) from back when the reserve side played in the USL Championship.

Prediction: Picking between a bad team and a skidding team can feel like a coin flip. But I doubted Indy last round, and I’ve seen the light.

Sporting Kansas City are a bigger team with far more talent than Indy Eleven, but that talent isn’t performing consistently. The organization did almost nothing during the transfer window to alleviate issues. I think Sporting has better forwards, but not the players who can get the ball to them. If Indy are able to find the same consistency that beat a middling Atlanta United, it can beat an outright bad Kansas City: Indy wins 2-1.

The other side of the bracket features two West Coast teams with different goals. Seattle Sounders are a team with middling results this season, but they know the importance of a US Open Cup run. They will host LAFC, who are coming off a hard-fought loss in the Leagues Cup Final on Sunday, but who remain one of the best soccer teams in the United States right now.

One of these teams can make American soccer history if they win the cup, while the other can help make history by just reaching the final.

The Seattle Sounders enter this match somewhat meh. The team sit in 6th Place in the Western Conference with 40 points in 26 games. But a slow start to the 2024 season was replaced with incredible form over the last couple of months, and now they are in the top half of their conference.

The Sounders are coming off a win last weekend back in MLS play over Minnesota United, 3-2.

Since the beginning of June, head coach Brian Schmetzer and his group have won seven of nine games. Four of those have been clean sheets thanks to the work of the backline that allows the third-fewest goals in the league (1.2). Goalkeepers Stefan Frei and Andrew Thomas have been stellar for the squad, with the latter lining up between the posts in the last three US Open Cup matches.

Jordan Morris leads the team in MLS goals with 10, and that doesn’t include his game-winner against Sacramento last round. He’s followed by a pair of Designated Players in Raúl Ruidíaz (8) and Albert Rusnák (5).

Seattle is a team that thrive in open play. Of their 37 goals this season, 20 have come from natural progression: They know how to break teams down. That’s what happened in the US Open Cup Round of 16, when midfielder Kalani Kossa-Rienzi got a critical 88th-minute goal to beat Phoenix Rising FC.

Also of note, the team are holding the semifinal at Starfire Sports Stadium, their secondary facility, as Lumen Field will be busy hosting Metallica. Starfire is the same venue where the Sounders dispatched Louisville and Phoenix. On one hand, playing a huge game at a 5,000-capacity multi-purpose stadium is a bad look. But the intimate confines and sold-out nature will be a fantastic atmosphere.

This year in the US Open Cup, Seattle has only played USL Championship competition, and opted to have backup goalkeeper Andrew Thomas between the posts. The Russian expat came up big in a penalty kick shootout win over Louisville City FC in the Round of 32. He then helped hold back late comebacks against Phoenix Rising FC and Sacramento Republic FC in subsequent rounds. It remains to be seen if he’ll be between the sticks against an MLS opponent, or if team captain Stefan Frei will take the spot in a critical game.

Historically, the Sounders are old hands at the US Open Cup. Early in their MLS history, the team dominated the competition and won it four times in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2014. Schmetzer was an assistant coach on those squads, and is now looking for his first cup as a head coach.

Since then, Seattle hasn’t gotten far in the tournament. This year marks the team’s first semifinal appearance since 2014. Like Kansas City, an appearance in the final would give the Sounders a chance to make history and win a fifth US Open Cup trophy. The team will also be looking for its first major honor since winning the CONCACAF Champions League in 2022.

To do that, they’ll need to vanquish an old demon in LAFC, a team aiming to appear in their sixth final in five years.

LAFC are hot right now, and one of the more consistently excellent teams in MLS. They are second in the Western Conference with 47 points through 24 games, with two games in hand over first-place rivals LA Galaxy. Like Seattle, they had an inconsistent start, with a February and March tally of just two wins in six games. Since then, the team has only lost three games across all competitions over the last five months.

There’s a reason why head coach Steve Cherundolo was floated as a possible USMNT coaching hire. He and his group are scoring nearly two goals a game while only allowing around one per match. They concede a lot of possession to other squads but use what time they have with the ball incredibly effectively. It’s no accident that LAFC are tied for the most regular season clean sheets with nine.

Last season’s MLS Golden Boot winner Denis Bouanga is in third place this year with 16 league goals. He leads the team across all competitions in goals (22) and assists (13). He also leads MLS in shots (124) and shots on target (47).

Other key players include midfielder Mateusz Bogusz, who has come up with huge goals in his sophomore season with the team, and former French national team keeper Hugo Lloris who slotted into a main role with the club since joining back in December.

There’s also the fact that LAFC's summer transfer window included the small bit of news  France national team star and European legend Olivier Giroud signed with the team through 2025. The forward has already played in four games for his new squad, coming in as a second-half substitute in three Leagues Cup matches before starting and scoring in Sunday’s final. 

Unlike every other team in this round, LAFC also played Leagues Cup games all throughout the month of August. The team reached its fifth final in team history but lost to the Columbus Crew away in Ohio, 3-1, in a rematch of last year’s MLS Cup Final on Sunday. This game already forced the US Open Cup game to be moved from Tuesday to Wednesday in order to give LAFC more time to recover, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the squad will be playing their second consecutive away game on short rest.

However, just by making it to this point of the Leagues Cup make LAFC a kingmaker of sorts. The team already qualified for the 2025 CONCACAF Champions Cup as Leagues Cup Runner-Up. This means if they beat Seattle on Wednesday, the winner of Kansas City and Indy will automatically qualify for the CCC. This happened last year, when Houston Dynamo qualified even before they went on to beat Miami in the US Open Cup Final.

It's also not hard to see that LAFC are one of the reasons why MLS and the US Open Cup are currently at odds. In 2023, the team played 53 matches including the regular season, playoffs, US Open Cup, Leagues Cup, Champions League, and Campeones Cup. This set a record for an MLS team during a single year.

In the offseason, as the league attempted to fully remove MLS first teams from the Open Cup, the plight of LAFC was cited multiple times by league heads such as Commissioner Don Garber and MLS Executive Vice President of Sporting Product and Competition Nelson Rodriguez.

To get to the semifinal this year, LAFC began by dispatching their former affiliate Las Vegas Lights (USLC) in the Round of 32. They followed that up with drubbings at home against Loudoun United FC (USLC) and a well-traveled New Mexico United (USLC).

LAFC have never reached an Open Cup final, but this is their second time playing in a semifinal. In the team’s inaugural 2018 tournament, they fell to eventual champion Houston in a penalty shootout. In the last two editions, they were eliminated in the Round of 16 by their biggest rivals, the LA Galaxy. Notably, LAFC have never been the victim of a cupset by a lower division team.

In the head-to-head between the two teams, the Sounders have not beaten Los Angeles in nine straight games. This includes a 3-0 loss in the Leagues Cup Quarterfinals back on August 17. The Sounders’ last win over LAFC was on May 16, 2021.

Prediction: Short rest is tough to overcome. Turn the calendar back to 2023 for a moment and think about Inter Miami CF’s late August, winning the Leagues Cup Final after a sprint of games before playing FC Cincinnati in the US Open Cup semis four days later. Miami survived that game off a stoppage time Lionel Messi dart to Leonardo Campana to force extra time, where IMCF went on to win in a shootout.

I bring this up because Los Angeles FC has three days to rest going into Wednesday’s game against the Seattle Sounders. I don’t think it's smart to bet against a team looking for a tenth straight win against an opponent, but I don’t think it's unwise to consider human fatigue. Still, I don’t think LA loses two games in a four-day span. LAFC reach the final, 3-1, and will be CCC kingmaker to whoever wins Tuesday’s match.

Potential finals and what they could mean

Following July’s Quarterfinals, US Soccer held a random draw to determine hosting priority for the 2024 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Final. Put simply, the team with the highest number that wins its semifinal match will host the final on September 25. The results of that draw were as follows:

1. Los Angeles FC (MLS)
2. Indy Eleven (USLC)
3. Seattle Sounders FC (MLS)
4. Sporting Kansas City (MLS)

There are four different final pairings and each one has its own storyline. 

• Los Angeles FC vs Indy Eleven
  A battle between the team that caused this whole Open Cup fiasco and a team running off the age-old saying “If you can’t join them, beat them”
• Los Angeles FC vs Sporting Kansas City
  Conference Champion hopeful versus Wooden Spoon contender, with LAFC looking to add some US Open Cup silverware to an ever-growing trophy cabinet while Kansas City can tie a record with their fifth title
• Indy Eleven vs Seattle Sounders FC
  The first time a non-MLS venue has held the final since 2001, Indy and Seattle would be a battle between teams who truly know what power the US Open Cup has on US Soccer
• Seattle Sounders FC vs Sporting Kansas City
  One team will walk out of the final with a record-tying fifth US Open Cup title, joining legendary sides Maccabee Los Angeles, Bethlehem Steel FC, and Fall River Marksmen

Even with my bias towards the lower leagues, three of these finals would be spectacular. Either option featuring Seattle or Indianapolis has drama, history, and enough added intrigue that even a casual viewer will enjoy it. Even if the game itself is bad, and over in 45 minutes, the lead-up to the September 25 match, and the aura of the final, will be great.

So, for the love of God, please don’t let it be LAFC vs Sporting Kansas City.