Good vs Evil: US Open Cup's Second Round begins today

Open Cup Digest #13

The Second Round of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup is here, featuring the 32 survivors from two weeks ago. The storylines are rich for the 16 matchups that will take place these next two days.

To be frank, the 110th edition of America's oldest soccer tournament was not kind to locals in the First Round. Still, we have a derby featuring a professional side and a champion amateur outfit taking place right outside the city. Plus, the clash up in New England has connections to New York City FC, and then there’s a game in Chattanooga everyone needs to watch.

Read on as we take you through each match of local interest in this week’s Second Round, before making some iron-clad Open Cup predictions.

If you can’t go to a game yourself, these Second Round matches will be broadcast live on US Soccer’s YouTube channel.

This is a game both teams need to win — not just to advance, but to better themselves as clubs.

Portland Hearts of Pine are rocking in their first season in USL League One. The hype is real and fans are buying in, literally: Nearly all season tickets have been sold at this point. 

On the field, Hearts are pretty solid too. A 4-0 win in the First Round with a crazy atmosphere at Franklin Athletic Complex in Lewistown, which isn’t even the club’s home stadium. That was followed up with a 0-0 draw in Florida against fellow expansion side FC Naples last weekend, when close to 200 fans made the long trip down south.

Roster-wise Portland are good as far as Division III goes, with players that include former New York City FC midfielder Mikey Lopez, and USL journeyman Jake Keegan, who is from Stormville, New York. 

Hearts face their New England brothers and Tri-State Area foe, Hartford Athletic. Winless through their first three games of the USL Championship season, the team look bad. After being shut out in their first two games, Hartford’s first goal this season came last Saturday when Mamadou Dieng scored a 29th-minute goal. Former NYCFC II forward Jonathan “JJ” Jiménez hasn’t gone a full 90 minutes, but he did provide the one assist for the team in league play. JJ is finding out that USL is a lot different from MLS Next Pro.

Hartford’s 3-0 win against the New York Shockers in the First Round wasn’t surprising. (In fact, I called it perfectly.) But the issue remains that Hartford have no bite. They have a defense that can be built around core pieces such as Cuban native Adrián Diz and Yale’s TJ Presthus, but it hasn’t come together yet. The team are going to rely on forward Michee Ngalina for now, who had a goal and assist against the Shockers, but it's not a solution for the long term.

In early March, Athletic and Hearts met at Trinity Health Stadium for a preseason friendly. A crowd of 500 witnessed the USL League One side cruise past Hartford – who were admittedly playing reserves, trialists, and academy players – by the score of 4-0. 

Portland Hearts of Pine Breeze Past Hartford Athletic in Preseason Friendly

The visitors put four past a Hartford side primarily featuring reserves, trialists, and academy players

The Blazing MusketOliver Scholes

But preseason results don’t count.  Hearts can make a statement with only their third-ever match and win their first-ever game against a professional team. Meanwhile, Hartford still have yet to beat a professional team in the US Open Cup: This is the seventh year of the team’s existence and the only wins have come against amateurs. If they lose to their little brother from up north, it's going to be awful for everyone from the Bonanza to the front office brace.

Prediction: Last round’s Hartford win was the only game I nailed, even down to the scoreline. But this is a team with no identity, just like the city of Hartford: They’re soulless. Portland are a Division III team at their core, and last year Hartford were beaten at home in the US Open Cup by one of those that goes by the familiar name of NYCFC II. I can’t expect Hartford to surprise us on the road. Give me Portland in the most unsurprising cupset of the Second Round, 2-1.

This is the game for the locals who want to see a battle of old vs new.

Westchester SC are feeling good right now. With a ton of money invested in the team’s inaugural season roster, a win in the First Round against FC Motown and a first-ever USL League One win last weekend, means the monkeys are off their back for now.

The Westchester players who are scoring are the ones with pedigree. They include Conor McGlynn (who had over 100 games with Hartford Athletic and helped Rhode Island FC reach the USL Championship final last year), Tobi Adewole (who played in USL and Germany for close to a decade), and Juan Carlos “JC” Obregón (who is a product of the Metropolitan Oval Academy, he has a cap with the Honduran National Team).

The team’s chemistry is building, and nowhere is that more evident than the win over Texoma FC on the road last weekend. After going down early, the visitors didn’t allow another shot on target for the rest of the game despite not keeping possession of the ball, and Westchester went home 1-3 winners.

The Pancyprian Freedoms are going into Wednesday playing with house money. The only New York City-area local amateur to reach the Second Round, the team have every right to be proud of advancing. Goalkeeper Josh Levine faced 24 shots, and four corner kicks and made seven saves to earn a 120-minute clean sheet against FC Cincinnati 2, and was named Player of the Round. In the penalty kick shootout, FCC 2 blew an early advantage after missing the net twice, allowing Jens Hoff of the Freedoms to bury his shot for the win.

The Pancyprian Freedoms, who are the defending National Amateur Cup champions and current APSL Metropolitan Conference leaders, have the talent to win. Good news for them, going to Mount Vernon is easier than traveling to Kentucky: They’ll have more of their roster with them when they play on Wednesday.

Prediction: Last round showed us that Westchester are a still developing team, but since then the squad started scoring goals. Pancyprians had enough in the tank to hold back an academy team, but I’m not sure they can hold back a fully pro one. Give me Westchester in extra time, 1-0.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

– In Flanders Fields, John McCrae, 1915

The tactics of this game do not matter. The players on the field are soldiers in a seven-year war, of which this is the first direct conflict between opposing powers. The names on their backs matter less than the patch over their hearts.

Chattanooga FC was long the poster child for lower-division soccer. Since their founding in 2009, the organization grew exponentially. The team set attendance records in the National Premier Soccer League and Finley Stadium became a mecca of sorts for believers of what the sport of soccer could be outside of Major League Soccer. And just as much for heretics, such as MLS Commissioner Don Garber, whose famous words against the club’s “crappy field with no fans” have become a banner to be raised when needed.

That all changed in 2018, when USL announced a new professional Division III team for Chattanooga. Backed by business executive Robert (Bob) Martino from Utah, many Chattanooga FC saw the new organization as a way to overtake a club that had proven grassroots soccer could work. The tensions and animosity bubbled, and sides were taken.

There were rumblings that the club now known as Chattanooga Red Wolves would try to play at Finley Stadium, home to Chattanooga. CFC extended their lease. Some years later, the city of East Ridge, TN – which houses the Red Wolves stadium – kicked Chattanooga FC’s academy programs from their soccer complex. When the Wolves started a women's team, they made one of the best players in CFC history, Luke Winters, the head coach.

CFC’s jump to professional soccer in the National Independent Soccer Association in 2019 was a response, in part, to the Red Wolves. After finishing first in the league in 2023, CFC joined MLS Next Pro, and the stability of the league means the team can keep playing for years to come. But they can never make the jump to USL in Division II because of Martino and the league’s territory rights.

It’s been chess, never a battle. The two teams never agreed to a preseason “friendly” —  in what world could they? The US Open Cup is the only forum for this match to happen.

I personally know Chattanooga FC fans who never wanted this game to happen. Never wanted the Red Wolves to get a chance at the legitimacy that would come with a win. This isn’t merely about proving who are the better team, it’s about not wanting the other club to live. The fans say it with anger and vigor. And deep down, I believe, there is fear. The fear of losing to an enemy you see next door, one that represents the worst aspects of soccer in this country, namely the business and cold calculating side.

My sources tell me that more than 6,800 tickets have already been sold for this game. At game time, there could be close to 9,000 people in the stands.

Wednesday won’t just be a match to determine who gets to the Third Round. It’s good versus evil.

Prediction: SoccerWarz. The SoccerWar never changes.