2025 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup [R]

basically we're in the third tier competition with MLS Next Pro teams

 

My question is are we sitting doing nothing for a month while leagues cup is going on?

 

No, there's only one weekend off for Leagues Cup this time. The knockout rounds will be interspersed with the league season.

 

Oh alright. Sounds good then. Thanks!

 

Prefer to participate in both competitions like last season, but prefer Open Cup over Leagues Cup.

 

I'd sure love to win that open cup after so many fruitless years of competing and losing. We have a couple of MLS Cups and Supporters Shields, but that one has always eluded us.

 

Finally we catch a break and get to host those guys. They didn't look great against El Farolito. Aaron Edwards, former The Town player, is playing right winger for them.

 

Sacramento is 1pt above last place (Oakland Roots). So, we have a chance. Do we have to pay for this game (not in the season ticket package)?

Looks like Luis Felipe is still playing for them.

 

Bonus Game A for season ticketholders.

 

Solid use of a bonus game ticket!

 

At our current rate, this may be the only chance to get a win until we play Houston (may be NE in Boston).

 

Don't look now but the lowly Revs who had like zero goals from the run of play until a few weeks ago, now have more points than the Quakes... you'd think they would really be suffering after Bruce took 7 of their players and they even added a bunch of scrubs from the 2024 Quakes top three worst MLS teams ever, but nope they've won 4 of their last 5!

 

Will Bruce take Open Cup seriously? What is his track record?

We used to start the game with bench players and only put in the usual starters when we needed to chase. Sometimes it was too little too late. And also the one bench player I would not want to see is Edwards.

Will we even see the likes of Paul Marie and Jack Skahan who rarely even make the gameday bench these days?

 

Bruce said there's gonna be some rotation but they're putting in a lineup that can win (I would hope so). He said they were gonna have to have some rotation anyway due to lots of games this month. I think we can expect a hodge podge lineup with lots of starters on the bench. It'll be the way the Quakes usually approach USOC.

The problem is that we're gonna have a hodge podge lineup, and even though our players are likely better on average, Sac will be putting out something close to their standard lineup and these guys play together all the time. That's how you can lose these games.

 

Well, the US Open Cup is ... open. It includes USL and even pub league teams in the very early rounds. It's cool by me. US Open Cup is by far the oldest of these competitions.

Go Quakesfans!!

 

The vibe I got from Bruce is more like the USOC we vibe we had for years - yeah we want to win but we're gonna play our B team and rest our starters. Last year it was "We're in it to win it!" and we played more starters but still lost. That was a brutal game in Sac where we had the lead late and then Sac scored 2 or 3 goals to win it in extra time.

Plus I think Bruce feels a little bad about the players from last year who were used to getting regular playing time but have been relegated to little no playing time. I would expect to see players like the following in the starting lineup:

Paul Marie
Jack Skahan
Preston Judd
Niko Tsakiris
Jamar Ricketts
Nick Lima
Noel Buck
Pellegrino
Roberts
Edwards

 

Please no Edwards, let's use our third keeper, he can't be worse. And no Preston Judd, he's scored his one goal of the year (in preseason) and he's done for the year.

 

Chances of both starting are high. You can tell that Bruce is not "in it to win it" really. And I'm sure he doesn't want to risk losing Daniel to injury, and he's very susceptible to injury. As for Judd, he's the 4th forward and Josef is out. And he's fully rested. He sucks, but he did score against Sac last year.

 

And he's never scored more than one goal for us in a year. Mr. "One And Done"...

 

Technically he scored 2 for us last year - one tap in early in the season and then the USOC goal. But in MLS play, 1 goal in about 1000 minutes in his Quakes career. :facepalm. At some point you have to just say - this isn't working out.