Recognizing the “tradition” of the U.S. Open Cup
Few people, if any, are literally as close to the most important pieces of American soccer history than Djorn Buchholz. As the executive director of the National Soccer Hall of Fame — located in FC Dallas‘ south end at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas — Buchholz oversees priceless artifacts on a regular basis, including relics from the U.S. Open Cup.
“We’re talking about a tournament that’s been played since 1914,” said Buchholz. “I think it’s important when we’re telling the history of the game, to focus a lot of times on that tournament, to show people how long the sport has actually been here and what a rich history it actually has.”
Along with invaluable U.S. Open Cup medals, pins — and a “Red Star Club” area that’s devoted to the tournament — the Hall of Fame also houses arguably the most important U.S. Open Cup souvenir: The Dewar Cup, which was given to the original winners of the competition that was once formerly known as the National Challenge Cup.
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“The idea of player load and schedule congestion, to us, those are two different things, although they’re related. This is not unique to MLS, this is not unique just because we added Leagues Cup, Copa America is going to play this year in the U.S. and we anticipate having up to 60 MLS players involved in that tournament,” said Rodriguez.
“That’s a whole another range of games that they’re eligible for or playing that goes beyond the physical, [it] goes to the psyche of the player, the emotion and the psychological state of a player, those tournaments carry a lot of pressure.”
From the perspective of one side of the table that brought up all of these topics and more to the USSF since last May, no progress was made.
“We got to December with no change, nothing,” said Rodriguez.
By then, MLS was pushing more for their MLS Next Pro teams to be involved in the U.S. Open Cup. Rodriguez stated that they didn’t receive a “definitive reply,” which then led to their press release in December that drew widespread anger and condemnation.
“Could we have handled the announcement better? Absolutely. In retrospect, absolutely. We did not do a good job there and that’s on us. That also probably put U.S. Soccer in a difficult spot,” said Rodriguez.
“We needed to do better there and we didn’t and hopefully we’ll do better in the future, but it wasn’t an all of a sudden thing.”
As noted earlier, the USSF initially denied MLS’ request, before changing course and allowing a hybrid participation with eight MLS teams — a first since 2011. In the 2012 edition and beyond, all MLS teams were involved in the U.S. Open Cup.
“That [intention to field MLS Next Pro teams] seemed at least to generate a whole new round of discussions, it involved other constituents and participants in the Open Cup, but even then, not everything came together until February of this year,” said Rodriguez.
He noted that more could be done but has also gave credit to the USSF for following through with an increase in investment and meeting many of the goals that were laid out. Approval was certified by a newly formed U.S. Open Cup subcommittee, a group that, according to ESPN, was formed despite the presence of an already existing U.S. Open Cup committee.
Regarding MLS’ ability to field only eight first teams, which is against the USSF’s Pro League Standards requirement that a Division I Men’s Outdoor League must have its U.S.-based teams “participate in all representative U.S. Soccer and Concacaf competitions for which they are eligible,” MLS was given a waiver for 2024.
Faced with an alternating blueprint, the USL wasn’t pleased with the outcome after a different set of goals were discussed in December.
“A decision was made to try to adopt this format for one year, not to kill the Cup, which is fine, but you know, if we have the Pro League Standards that say a certain thing, why don’t we just stick to them,” said USL president Paul McDonough when asked if the USSF should have maintained their denial of MLS teams being replaced by MLS Next Pro teams.
Before confirmation that USL had full support for the U.S. Open Cup, doubts about tournament participation from a minority group of USL owners emerged.
“It was really more … the changing of U.S. Soccer’s decision from December,” said McDonough when asked why teams considered dropping out. “People just didn’t feel good about how things were handled.”
USL’s president is also waiting to judge the impact of the latest changes in regulations, which includes the aforementioned increase in investment that impacts all U.S. Open Cup participants.
“I think U.S. Soccer tried to make some steps in the right direction,” he said. “I think we don’t really know if it’s been good or bad until we’re able to look back at the whole collective, but I think even when we look back on it after the final, I think you have to judge it over the next couple of years, because there was so much drama and tension around this year’s tournament.”
