MLS owned USL teams ineligible for 2016 Open Cup

I see it the other way. I don't really care how they do in the regular season. What matters is the players getting experience so the more games the better.

 

Yeah, that's my only gripe about this. I mean, I see the logic behind it. It makes sense in a generic soccer-competition way. But this is the US OPEN Cup. That word "open" is there for a reason, not just so soccer can join tennis and golf in having "US Open" competitions. The philosophy behind the USOC is that any team operating under the auspices of the USSF is eligible to play. They may have to qualify in some manner, but there's always a path to the tournament. Now (for the first time?) a class of clubs is being told they can't play. I don't think that's fair to the players.

I know other countries have similar rules, but their cups don't have "Open" in the name.

If this is the way it's going to be, let's change the name. How does the "Lamar Hunt National Challenge Cup" sound? It was called the NCC for over 75 years...

------RM

 

I am not sure if FIFA is at all concerned with OCSC facing Stoke City (or DC United facing Inter Milan, or NYRB facing Red Bull Salzburg, or NYCFC facing Man City) in the Club World Cup, someday, but the USOC is indeed an entry point toward the qualification into the CWC.

Again, just interesting that US Soccer is crafting this "multi-team ownership" barrier within the 2016 USOC, and I don't see a real need or benefit to such an exclusionary regulation for that "Open" tournament.

 

Could not the same be said about SKC and the Swope Park Rangers? Or the Timbers and T2?

Those MLS clubs are owned by the league (MLS) and are operated by investors in the single entity. That those investors also have independent (separate entity) USL clubs seems no different from the "sibling club" relationships that teams like DC, NYCFC and RBNY all have via their I/O's non-MLS club holdings elsewhere.

Players in MLS have MLS contracts. That reality seems to supercede the need for this new USOC exclusionary regulation that US Soccer is apparently putting in place for 2016.

I am not sure why US Soccer needs to create a classified distinction between the "ownership" relationship that SKC and Swope Park Ranger have and the "affliated" (and player loaning) relationship that DC has had with Richmond, for example.

 

"The team" owns them?

How so?

The local owners (those business folk who operate SKC and are investors in MLS) have a separate club holding playing in the USL that is Swope Park Rangers, and that separate holding has nothing to do with MLS, afaik.

 

I guess that's debatable. If MLS-2 teams are just reaching into the depths of their academy to stock rosters, I'm not sure how much the tournament benefits from that. I don't think that USOC is a big enough prize, or that MLS teams have the depth, for teams to provide two teams. I think it's absolutely worth noting that Germany and Spain enacted this rule after previously being more open.

It really isn't. The only one that's murky is Houston/Rio Grande Valley, where the Dynamo seem to be operating the soccer side of things but the club is actually independent.

 

And MLS teams tend to do the exact same thing. And in some ways excluding "their" USL sides from the 2016 USOC will allow those MLS teams to do that even more expansively in the USOC. And I'm not sure how much the tournament benefits from that.

The MLS club has to provide one team, and the USL club has to provide the other team. They do so all season long in their domestic leagues, not sure why some change/modification is needed within the USOC.

And yes, players get loaned. But that happens in "affiliated" club relationships in other markets just as it does in these new "joint-owned" markets with MLS I/O's now owning and operating a USL club.

Yes it is worth noting.

Just at is worth noting that the 2015 USOC was a fine competition without this type of "multi-ownership" exclusionary regulation in place.

 

I wonder if this is a pretext for having fewer teams, meaning fewer matches, meaning a less expensive competition.

 

No one is concerned about the potential for the USL2 teams to attempt to give their 1st team an advantage?

I can see issues where the integrity of the competition is called into question.

 

I feel the same way about HOU and LAG within MLS, but I don't let it bother me too much.

I'm most concerned about MCFC coming over in their preseason and intentionally hacking down as many MLS stars as possible in friendlies to try to help NYCFC's playoff hopes in 2016.

 

Because it's an additional competition. This isn't hard.

 

And those teams managed that additional competition in 2015. Not sure the NYRB2 example was that much of an "issue" in the grand scheme of things.

I do think it is interesting that US Soccer is giving an "advantage" to a subset of USL teams within the USL season/competition by excusing/preventing those clubs from USOC competition. And I also think it is interesting that US Soccer seems to be encouraging MLS clubs to "re-call" their USL-loanees (since those players USL teams won't be in the USCO and those players will not be cup-tied).

 

This rule perhaps seems to be crafted to keep the Revolution out of the 2016 USOC as well.

 

Dumb rule that precludes a lot of potentially interesting matchups.

 

This is a good change. Full stop.

 

Well, it is a change. I doubt that we'd ever have had a conflict of interest since there is no way a II/B side is making the finals since we don't have a Real Madrid type team and this isn't 1980 (Real played their reserve side in a cup final that year. Since they won the league their reserve team played in the Cup Winners Cup). It also eliminates playing time for academy players against better competition in competitive games. But in the end I don't think this really matters either way. The loss of 1 or 2 games a year for those players doesn't amount to much, and the "increased integrity" of the tournament is non-existent since it was never really going to come into play. But I'm honestly ambivalent on this idea and don't think it matters either way (something unheard of on soccer twitter apparently considering the craziness on there).

 

Well stated. It likely "matters" most/only in the sense that the US Open Cup will be closed to some subset of teams in 2016.

And I suppose that is the same as arguing how major is MLS or how united is the USL.

 

I just never liked the idea of reserve teams playing in the tournament to begin with. RSL playing the Seattle 2 team last year was weird.

 

It is less weird if you think of them as USL teams, which they are, rather than just thinking of them as MLS reserve rosters/teams.

MLS teams have historically and regularly sent out their "reserve teams" anyway for USOC duty.

Giving those "secondary rosters" their own/separate entry into the USOC was potentially a real way for some MLS clubs to actually (have to) use their first choice rosters in more of the USOC.

 

But practically they aren't. If a team is using them properly, they're a reserve team. NYRBII, for example, used 14 first-team players this season, plus all the academy kids whose rights are held by the MLS team. That's a reserve team, no matter how you slice it.

 

And practically every USL club will be different, though. And what is a "proper" or realistic use for RB will not necessarily be the approach in KC or Portland or LA or Seattle or Salt Lake or Orlando.

And regardless of those differences, I don't see it as a positive to exclude those "cross-ownership" teams from the USOC. Why should those academy kids (or whomever is on some USL "2/II/B" side) be denied an opportunity to compete (as a USL team) in the USOC, against some other lower-division clubs specifically?