Just as the 2003 cup ends, the 2004 LHUSOC is about to begin..... http://www.mdcvsa.org/nationalcup.html The qualifying tournament for the USASA clubs in DC/Virginia is scheduled to begin on the weekend of November 1-2, with the draw to be held sometime between Oct. 20-22.
Yes, I can't wait to begin the 2004 USASA Open Cup Qualifying Results Scavenger Hunt! speaking of such.... DC/Virginia USASA qualifying First Round Dynamos FC v. FC Beserkers LCC International v. Virginia United Matches are to be playes on or before Nov. 16 Dynamos FC advanced to the Region I qualifiers last year Also, the Illinois website has the draw posted for their USASA Amateur & O-30 cup qualifiers, so I figure the Open Cup draw should be up there soon as well.
YeeHAW! I LOVE it! Year-round soccer in the US! Thank you so much for remembering that it starts this early! I seem to remember that Massachusetts started theirs around this time as well, but were a LOT harder to track down.
Chn71. Isn't that already the Semi-Finals and the Final round to qualify for the Region I tourny on the DC/Virginia website? Just curious if you can find that out.
As a first little assist, I found the new List of State Associations page on the new USASA website. Rhode Island is still and forever a dead link, but New Mexico now has a website, and a few of the others are looking a little better. It might just be a solid starting point for seeking out info this year.
Yeah, they only had four teams enter, which was the same amount as last year. I referred to it as the first round instead of semi-finals since calling a round "semi-finals" makes it sound like there where previous rounds. I have to dig up the e-mail addy I had for the manager of Green Brian Rebels of Mass., perhaps they have an idea when Mass. qualifying starts.
Massachusetts Final Looks like only two teams entered the Mass. qualifiers, the same two teams that were in last years Mass. finals. November 23 Boston Olympiakos v. Green Briar Rebels http://www.soccer-schedule.com/natcup03/2003_open.htm
First two teams for the Region I finals are set DC/Virginia First Round Nov. 16 Dymanos FC 3-1 FC Beserkers Nov. 16 LCC International 3-1 Virginia United Final Nov. 23 LCC International 3-2 Dynamos FC Massachusetts Nov. 23 Boston Olympiakos 4-2 Green Brian Rebels Deadline for clubs to enter the Maryland qualifiers was Dec. 6, so they should be posting the draw sometime soon.
It's going to be interesting what the A-League is going to do for Qualifying because they are down three clubs from the Western Conference as the Cincinnati Riverhawks, Indiana Blast have moved down to the PSL & I believe that the El Paso Patriots have shutdown. All there is left in the West is Portland, Seattle, Milwaukee & Minnesota. I know I'm probably going ahead of myself at the moment who knows if anyone is going to get promoted to A-League but still I think there should be some form of promotion or expansion clubs to help fill it up. And I'm sorry. No we should not allow Calgary, Vancouver or the new Edmonton club to be a part of the US Open Cup Qualifying. Hopefully something will happen.
If they do qualifing(sp) like last year then Portland and Seattle play for one spot and Minnesota and Milwaukee got for the other. In the East Charsleton would qualify for being champions. That would leave 5 US based teams in the East to qualify. That would be Interesting to see what Format is used.
I was almost going to wonder if qualifying may be out, if you take MLS (10), A-League (10), PSL (12), PDL (8), USASA (4). [Interesting that the United States has exactly 32 pro teams.] First round would be the 12 amateur teams versus the PSL, winners join the 20 MLS/AL teams in a round of 32. (I know I've expanded the LHUSOC to 44 teams, may be a bit much.) To get to 32, how about MLS (10), A-League (6), PSL (4), PDL (8), USASA (4).
So SJJ what you are saying is that in the PDL the top two in the table automatically move on from Qualifying into the 1st round? Two clubs per Conference move ahead? Not a bad idea. I wouldn't mind it. Makes it more fare I guess than top four and two 2nd place best finishes. I think what the A-League should do is combine all the clubs and make one table for Qualifying. See if the four Western clubs can try to putin two or three clubs into the mix. PSL clubs. That's a tough decision I guess. But we shall see what US Soccer is gonna do.
Actually, this looks perfect! The number of teams involved isn't really relevant. What matters more is whether MLS will schedule the breaks in, and keeping the number of rounds to a minimum. This schedule you've proposed actually REDUCES the number of rounds. It brings in all MLS teams at the point where last year it only brought in a couple. MLS should have no trouble scheduling around that. The only question I see is whether to stretch out the number of rounds so that the tournament runs as long. In '03, until the quarterfinals there was around 3 weeks between rounds. The arrangment you've proposed allows them to put a full month between rounds. I honestly don't see any problems with what you've suggested. I've been wanting to see more PDL teams in for some time, since there's so many of them. 'Course, they'll probably do something much more complex, like what GIO suggested over on the other thread that he's trying to move this discussion to
I'll move my post in here. Actually I should have written it in this thread, but I was so happy of this idea I made a new one. -------------------------------------------------- Everyone bare with me. I think I just had a brain storm. And I'm going to use SJJ's idea in the 2004 LHUSOC thread as well. O.k. Here it is. I hope everyone will like it if not make up one for your own. USASA will have their annual 4 Region winners. PDL will have winners and runners up in all four conferences in Qualifying PSL has 12 clubs this season so allow all of them to compete in Qualifying A-League will have five groups ( 3 in the East & 2 in the West) for Goal Aggregate Qualifying MLS all 10 clubs qualify. O.k. here it goes. Round 1 will have the Regional champions of the USASA against the PDL's four 2nd place finishers of all four conferences. The four PDL Conference winners will get a bye into the 2nd Round. 2nd round will have 8 out of the 12 PSL clubs who qualified with the four PDL clubs. Winners of the 1st round will join those clubs from PDL & PSL in the 2nd round. 3rd Round will have the A-League champion (Charleston Battery), two MLS clubs (Columbus & Dallas finished last in their conferences in 2003) and the A-League clubs that qualified for the remaining 5 spots, will be drawn with Round 2 winners. 4th round will be the remaining 8 MLS clubs against the 3rd round winners. Then Quarters, Semis & US Open Cup Final. So there is my idea. If anyone else thinks of something different go ahead, but I truly believe that this can be a good tournament for 2004 and maybe US Soccer will use it. If not at least I was trying to think of something.
Does Puerto Rico fit into the equation at all? I am just curious. They are a territory of the US. But, I think I read that they had their own federation. I think that the entire MLS and A-League should enter the tournament at the same time. Then, use what ever numbers it takes to get the tournament symetrical.
Southern Cal has an extensive results page for their State Open Cup, although it has not been updated recently: http://www.csa-s.org/portal/OpenCupPublic.asp
I think they're out bc of having their own fed. As to the other comment about the Canadian teams - no, they have no place in the USOC. Canada has the Voyagers Cup.
http://www.marylandsoccer.com/cups/2004/open.htm Maryland gets set to kickoff with everybody's favorite Jerry D's in the competition again. They will play Bertha's FC (of "Eat Bertha's Mussels" fame) in the first round.
Well, I never said how to get the eight PDL clubs, but I guess it's OK to take two from each conference. The only problem is that the conferences are unbalanced: Central (18), Eastern (15), Southern (13), Western (9). [That's why last year, with six teams, the Central and East got the two extra bids.] You could take the two Colorado teams from the Central and put them in the West for qualifying purposes, which would balance out the regions a little bit more. (Off the topic, if you want to combine the 11 MPSL teams into the West qualifying, that would be worthy of two full bids. Right now, MPSL teams try to qualify through the USASA route.) But I guess I'm just quibbling with numbers. (I'm even guessing that the PDL can get eight bids.) One last thing about PDL qualifying: it's getting too based on which teams you draw in qualifying. Playing only four qualifying games in an 18-team conference leaves a lot to the schedule-maker: you could blast a minnow to get full points. The USL tried to negate this somewhat by applying a max-of-3 in goals for-against-difference in the tie-breakers. I'd like to devise some kind of group-based qualifying for the PDL, where you play everyone in your group. For example, have four- or five-team groups (which would cut 55 teams to about 13 or 14), then have some play-off round: Central (4 or 5 groups), Eastern (4), Southern (3), Western (2).
The initial A-league matches have been set. 2004 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Qualification Pairings/Schedule Richmond v Virginia Beach Fri, April 30 @ Richmond; Sat, May 1 @ Virginia Beach Portland v Seattle Sat, May 1 @ Portland; Sat, May 15 @ Seattle Atlanta v Charleston Sat, May 8 @ Atlanta; Sat, May 15 @ Charleston Rochester v Syracuse Fri, May 14 @ Syracuse; Sat, May 22 @ Rochester Milwaukee v Minnesota Fri, May 21 @ Minnesota; Sat, May 22 @ Milwaukee http://www.uslsoccer.com/home/66998.html Should be some great games. The western conference matches were already gonna be exciting, but now adding Open Cup to them will be crazy.
But, to add to the confusion, here's how the A-League qualifying REALLY works: From the USL Home Office: http://www.uslsoccer.com/home/66998.html Which means Charleston and Minnesota are automatically through to the next round anyway. Only Atlanta and Milwaukee are really fighting for a berth in these 2 matchups. And if Charleston and Minnesota win their aggregate series, then spots open up. And if my logic is correct, it seems inevitable that 3 teams will lose their series and still get in. Try explaining that to the unwashed masses.
Well all I can say is as crazy as it sounds about the A-League Qualifying, at least one part is out. Now we have to wait for US Soccer to announce the whole format. If I was Minnesota & Charleston. I would lose the aggregate because either way they will automatically join in the 2004 USOC. Not saying it will happen, but I would think that they wouldn't have a problem with it. No one wants to back into qualifying for a place in the USOC, but still at least those two have it easy.
All the A-League USOC qualifiers also double as regular season matches so no one will be sand bagging it, which is a good thing.