Your back-to-back-to-back US Open Cup Quarterfinalist Philadelphia Union once again start their journey for the US Open Cup. Cup dates have been released: Fourth Round (MLS teams enter) June 14th* Fifth Round Draw (results in fixed bracket for remainder of tournament) June 15th Fifth Round June 28th* Quarterfinals July 11th^ Semifinals August 8th* Final September 20th * Any game in the Fourth Round, Round of 16 and Semifinal Round where one of the participants has a league game the following Friday will be moved up a day (exception to this is when the team’s opponent is scheduled for a league game the preceding Sunday; in this case, the provisions in the 2017 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Handbook to determine the match date will prevail). In addition, any game chosen by US Soccer to be broadcast nationally is subject to being moved up a day. ^ For the Quarterfinal Round, teams may apply to change the match date within a window that runs between July 7-16 if both teams in a match are not scheduled otherwise. Note: The day following each of the dates listed above is reserved as a make-up date in the event of a weather postponement. ------------------------------- So if you read through those caveats, it looks like Friday games can move dates to the previous Tuesday. Thankfully, the Union don't play any Friday games the entire summer as they aren't deemed national TV worthy...so that makes it a lot easier for us to plan, I suppose. So mark your calendars.
Ocean City is in it again... maybe they can go on a run and actually host the Union this time... (I really just want another excuse to go down the shore)
honestly, the one place our "new depth" may actually help us is the Open Cup.... we should be able to get through the first few rounds relatively easily considering our bench players are about on par with our normal starters.... I expect to at least make the Quarterfinals.
If you're right can we get a giant banner that says "4 Time Defending USOC Quarterfinalists!" hung in the stadium somewhere?!?
1st round draw hasn't even happened yet, so I think we have awhile. Other "local teams" to watch: Reading Junior Lone Star Ocean City Harrisburg full map of teams:
Except we all know Jim will trot out the Same XI during all three games in the week including the Open Cup matches.
Round 1 and 2 for local teams: Ocean City hosts Junior Lone Star Winner gets Harrisburg Reading hosts Clarkstown Winner gets the Cosmos
the Nor'easters were supposed to host that game. all of a sudden "US socccer" said that the field wasnt wide enough so they had to move the game to ppl. which of course was a load of b.s. because Ocean city hosted the round before that against Pittsburgh and the field was fine. 2017 same field is ok to host Junior lone star.
I think the field has actually been modified/improved since then and I'm also pretty sure the field requirements are lower in the earlier rounds... but yeah, I remember following that saga and Ocean City got screwed on some weird technicality. If you are picking between Ocean City High School and Bonner I think Ocean City definitely wins out. Shot in the dark, but I'm guessing Bonner doesn't meet the minimum requirements... either that or Junior Lone Star probably has a harder time securing the field than Ocean City has securing a place to play... If Ocean City wins I'm pretty sure they will host the Islanders, if Lone Star wins the location is still TBD.
Yeah i think the field has been changed a few times since then. Actually I think ocean City was able to get the temp "field" sod from Metlife stadium after they hosted the gold cup a few years back. But it never "took root" or whatever so the high school said "screw it we have $" and installed turf for the football team. Which now i believe has permanent football lines on it. Sux for the Nor'easters. Just a weird fyi- my small town, who always claims poverty, just got a bid for changing our lone football field from grass to turf at a price tag of a cool mil. City council thought that was a bargain. I guess thats why they are poor.
Was OC actually screwed? What do they draw, 800-2k? I was at that match, we stole it late I think. Maybe there were 4-5k at PPL? Does OC not see any revenue from the gate? This has the stadium reqs https://www.ussoccer.com/~/media/fi...en-cup-open-division-handbook--v810.pdf?la=en
I guess. 2,000 at $10 is $20k. USSF gets a cut too I think. If they share gate, I mean, I get that every game helps those lower level teams but for the U its probably a sunk cost. More expensive to open the building than the revenue they'll realize. I imagine its worse for OC.
Looking at the format for this year the Union probably have a decent chance of drawing another MLS team in the 4th round. (their first round) If I'm reading it right there will be three all-MLS matches in round four and our geography doesn't really help us. I suspect we'd want to root heavily for the Ocean City/Lone Star/Harrisburg winner to win against whoever they are paired with in round 3.... I think it's likely they end up playing the winner of Cosmos/Reading/Clarkstown. The other long shot teams to root for to lower our odds of drawing an MLS team in the first round would be for the winner of NJ Copa/FC Motown to knock out Rochester, because it would get one more localish team in the mix to potentially pair with in round 4, but odds are they get assigned to a NY team if that happens... we might get lucky at that point and be paired with a Carolina team or Virginia, but it's probably unlikely because they are more likely to get paired with Atlanta or DC.... maybe at that point you pray that one of the surplus of Florida teams is still available and we get to face Jacksonville and Squid vicious or something like that. I have to think Rochester probably most likely to be paired with New England in Round 4, and the Cosmos are likely to get Red Bull or NYCFC... if the Cosmos get through we are sort of odd man out if that happens. We aren't banned from playing Reading, but I think it will probably still be avoided, so basically we really need Harrisburg/Ocean City or Junior Lone Star to put something together to optimize our schedule....otherwise I think it's very likely we draw either the Red Bulls or NYCFC.
Ocean City winning 2-0 at the half... camera work is shotty and it's tough to see but seemed like they had control for much of the first half.. Lone Star started to look better in the last 10 minutes of the half but that 2-0 hole is gonna be tough to get out of. Link to stream: http://www.ussoccer.com/lamar-hunt-...-ocean-city-noreasters-vs-junior-lone-star-fc