Winning Things with Kids
Legendary Liverpool manager Alan Hansen said once: You can’t win anything with kids. It’s a sentiment well-taken, lauding the merits of experience, but some of the MLS teams in action this round proved otherwise. Orlando City, our 2022 Open Cup Champions, drove down I-4 and put an almighty beating down on their Division II neighbors the Tampa Bay Rowdies. And the man who scored the first two goals of the 5-0 rout was one Gustavo Caraballo. He’s just 16. He doesn’t drive and he has braces on his teeth. We recommend you keep an eye on him – as we also do Cavan Sullivan of the Philadelphia Union. The 15-year-old prodigy gave us clear insights into why he’s so ballyhooed when he lined up wide in the Union’s slim 1-1 draw with Indy Eleven that they eventually sealed via shootout. Sullivan became the fourth generation of his family to participate in our Open Cup, by the way, a fact outlined in a wonderful piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer by Jonathan Tannenwald. Mohammed Sofo, clinging to the edge of his teens, matched Caraballo for output – with two goals for his New York Red Bulls in a 4-1 win over the Switchback in Colorado Springs. So, with all due respect, maybe you can’t win everything with kids. But you might be able to win our Open Cup.
Long Shots and a Long Shot
AV ALTA, a first-year Division III pro side from California’s Antelope Valley, were in a bind from the opening whistle. On the road in Frisco, Texas against two-time Open Cup Champions FC Dallas, they fell behind after only three minutes when Lucho Acosta – the former MLS MVP who coach Eric Quill started as a signal of intent – put the ball in the back of the net. The California Dreamers’ long shot just got longer – which makes what happened next so poetic. Midfielder Osvaldo Lay, with no options, and sensing a wandering goalkeeper, hit a looping shot from 60-plus yards out. He was deep in his own half and the shot seemed to write in the sky – why not? It bounced once. FC Dallas keeper Michael Collodi panicked. The ball bounced over his head and ended up in the back of the net. Suddenly, the game’s tied and it’s all to play for – the Cupset dream is painted again in technicolor. But it doesn’t last long. Lionel Messi himself learned that it takes some doing to knock Lucho Acosta out of an Open Cup (Check the highlights of our 2023 Semifinal between FC Cincinnati and Inter Miami CF for proof of that). In the end, the long shots from Lancaster went down. So did the other three remaining Division III teams. Chattanooga Red Wolves, Union Omaha and Tacoma Defiance all lost out to top-tier MLS clubs. But, and trust us on this, the dream that drove them survives.
A Salute to Sir Thomas, Lord of Tukwila
Andrew Thomas has often been the hero of Starfire – the teeny sports complex in Tukwila, WA where he helped the Seattle Sounders reach the Semifinal last year and where legendary Open Cup moments are too many to count. He gave everything he had in a hunt for another – up against long-time rivals the Portland Timbers (MLS) as a member of the Sounders academy affiliate Tacoma Defiance (MLS NEXT Pro). A man of uncommon intensity, the goalkeeper seems to absorb energy from the lodgepole pines that surround the stadium – and from the fans who roar there. With the score tangled at 2-2, and facing a penalty, he guessed wrong and was beaten from the spot late in the game. The moments were fading, seconds only left. The day was dying. One last corner kick for the trailing Defiance, so up Thomas went – raging the full length of the field at a full sprint. He threw caution to the winds and rose to head the ball at the back post. Reckless is the only word for how he attacked it. It fell in the area, awaiting a Defiance player to send the game to OT and ignite the energies that live and breed in the dense forests that ring the little ground. But it didn’t come and the game ended with three blasts of a whistle. The air left the little building with a sigh. The Cupset hung there – remaining only in future possibility – when Thomas ringed the pitch to salute the fans for giving it their all and plenty.
The Numbers
Statistics. Aren’t they just overdone these days? Is it just us? Why so set in our ways? There are some numbers worth considering from our Round of 32. And we’ll begin, as we always do, with an important one: 30. That’s how many goals fell in our 16 games on May 6-7. That’s nearly two per game and that’s pretty damn good. We’ve discussed Philadelphia Union’s young Cavan Sullivan. And we’d like to put his age (15) in further context. When he was born, in September of 2009, Alejandro Bedoya (38) had already graduated from Boston College and had started his pro career in Sweden. Sullivan wasn’t yet walking when Bedoya earned his first cap (of an eventual 66) for the USMNT. But the two were both in the line-up for Philadelphia Union in this 2025 Open Cup Round of 32 – with a full 23 years spanning between them. Bedoya scored and was named Man of the Match. Sullivan was outstanding – and became the youngest-ever starter in the Union’s history that night. 5 is another good number. It’s how many goals fell in the 30 minutes of extra-time between North Carolina FC and Charlotte FC. The game ended 4-1 to CFC after 90 minutes of regulation couldn’t produce a single goal (there was another game in which 3 goals fell in OT – Phoenix Rising vs. Houston Dynamo). And of course, the big hairy monster number in the room is the number 15. That’s how many MLS teams are through to the Round of 16. And that’s the most ever in history – up one from the previous high of 14 in 2019 and 2023.
A Fond Farewell
This part’s the hardest. Every round we lose some of our favorites. It’s the nature of the Cup, and of competition in its most direct form. So remember fondly with us some of our dear fallen dreamers. Like the 10 USL Championship teams, among them Sacramento Republic, who – led by their aging captain and hero RoRo Lopez – couldn’t conjure the Magic that sent them to our Final in 2022. Charleston Battery – another famous Finalist (from 2008) – you went close, but no cigar. AV ALTA, we’re going to keep an eye on you as you climb higher and higher out there in Lancaster. Chattanooga Red Wolves, you survived three times on penalties, but came up just short of the line in Nashville. Same as Rhode Island FC, who, in their brand new soccer-specific stadium in Pawtucket, stretched the Revolution to the wire and look good for future runs in our beloved Open Cup.
So there we have it. Time only to take a breath, gather ourselves and go again – for a Round of 16 on May 20 and 21 when the cream of this country’s pro pyramid, 15 teams from Major League Soccer (MLS), gang up on the small-but-mighty Riverhounds of Pittsburgh. It’s right there around the corner. That constant tomorrow. An Open Cup sunrise for every sunset.
See you soon, friends.
Fontela is editor-in-chief of ussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.
