In sport, we seek the comfort of consistency. Our days are full of disappointment and the often unintelligible, so we flock to stadia and arenas all over the world for the reliable, the dependable, the steady. Yes, yes, we love underdogs and upsets and the shock of the feat we never imagined possible.<\/p>\n
But we hunger for the fact that the 30 baseball teams that played last season will be the same 30 that play this season \u2013 no matter how bad some of them were. That football field was 100 yards from endzone to the endzone for Red Grange and Jim Brown and Gale Sayers and Ezekial Elliott. And we burn up the phone lines on sports radio when hardwood coaches invoke the merits of \u201cload management\u201d during the NBA season. We are desperate for the solidity of sports because we find the rest of our lives anything but. And then there\u2019s the US Open Cup.<\/p>\n
A tournament that is so chock full of differences, so fairly brimming over with a kind of unreliable, undependable, \u201cwhat the hell is THAT\u201d ness that usually sends Americans running for the exits. Except, not so much in St. Louis on Tuesday night, where more than 22,000 fans packed CityPark (a record for a third-round Open Cup match, you should know, and tenth highest for any <\/em>Open Cup match), to watch St. Louis City SC take on Union Omaha. And display what makes these differences so great. Like…<\/p>\n Explaining to your polite but generally disinterested neighbor that yes, Omaha has a team but no, it\u2019s not in the same league as St. Louis \u2013 that it\u2019s sort of as if the Yankees were playing the Toledo Mud Hens in the middle of the MLB season \u2013 is only half the battle. A year ago, St. Louis didn\u2019t have an MLS team<\/em>; they had an MLS 2<\/em> team (don\u2019t even begin to try to explain that to your neighbor, just let him go back to watering his weeds), but not a top-tier team. (for those following along at home, SLC2 acquitted themselves admirably in 2022 – beating Indy 11<\/a> on the road in round 2 and then losing on PKs to Louisville City FC<\/a> in the following round).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Union Omaha \u2013 which has actually been around longer than St. Louis City SC, winning the USL 1 championship in 2021 \u2013 made a historic run to the Open Cup quarterfinals in 2022<\/a>, chewing up and spitting out two MLS sides along the way.<\/p>\n But the point is, the teams were different because they\u2019d never faced each other. They may never face each other again. Don\u2019t inhabit the same universe, except, you know, for the US Open Cup. How great is that?<\/p>\n If you\u2019re an MLS fan, you would be forgiven if you couldn\u2019t identify the players on Union Omaha. Yes, some, like Luis Gil, were stalwarts on MLS sides. Others made a few appearances on top sides, but couldn\u2019t get consistent minutes on the pitch. Still others played on MLS academy sides but couldn\u2019t break through. And a significant number have fought the good fight in the lower leagues that make up the American soccer landscape.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s understandable \u2013 the access the public has to USL1 games is limited. But the thing with the US Open Cup is, even if you\u2019re a St Louis City fan, you might not recognize the players taking the pitch in red. Where was Burki? Or Giochinni? Or even Louwen? Well, they are on the bench, because Portland is coming to town on Saturday and coach Bradley Carnell wants to rest his top players. However, there is also an opportunity, as Carnell said after the match \u201cWe knew we\u2019d have some hungry players\u201d \u2013 that is, players anxious to take this opportunity to show they have what it takes to be on the first team. Players like Aziel Jackson who had two goals and almost a third, or C\u00e9lio Pompeu who had three assists.<\/p>\n And while the opportunity to see new players shine is always gratifying, there was a different dynamic at play that was even more<\/em> compelling.<\/p>\n Consider this: it is not unreasonable to say that the level of individual talent on the MLS side \u2013 even among players who were not regular season starters \u2013 was generally higher than for the USL1 side. But what the USL1 side had was teamwork. They may not have been as talented as the St. Louis squad, but they really knew how each other played. Could anticipate their moves, understood their preferences, and were dialed into their speed and pace.<\/p>\n WE MOVE \ud83d\ude24 \u27a1\ufe0f#AllForCITY<\/a> x #USOC2023<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/OjsHh2il44<\/a><\/p>\n — St Louis CITY SC (@stlCITYsc) April 26, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe US Open Cup Is The Competition Americans Need<\/h2>\n
The Teams<\/em> Were Different<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The Players<\/em> Were Different<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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