Trip to Sacramento reminds of the value of the Open Cup

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The concept of American soccer culture has always been a bit murky. Although this country has had professional soccer leagues since at least the 1920s, it wasn’t until the MLS, which reached its 25th season, that it had a top-tier league.

The only almost completely unobstructed throughline we have had during this time has been the US Open Cup, a tournament now in its 109th year and which has been played every year since 1914 except for two (in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic).

Despite this rich history, MLS apparently felt it had outgrown the tournament and attempted to unilaterally remove its teams from this year’s competition. Fortunately, US Soccer was able to negotiate a compromise that kept at least some teams in the competition. One of the eight MLS teams that participated in the Open Cup was the Sounders, who had a chance to equal the tournament’s previous record of five titles.

I was reminded of how lucky we were when I arrived on Tuesday to watch the Open Cup quarterfinal between the Sounders and the Sacramento Republic.

There is absolutely nothing ostentatious about Heart Health Park, the Republic’s home stadium for ten of eleven seasons in what is now known as the USL Championship.

Located about seven miles from downtown on the grounds of the Cal Expo and State Fair, Heart Health Park is practically a stadium kit that seats about 11,500 fans in mostly aluminum bleachers. The “VIP” section is a covered area behind a goal and what passes for “luxury boxes” are really just seats with backs. There is no concourse, but rather an area outside the bleachers. Much of this space is given over to sponsors who give out freebies and ask you to sign up for their mailing list. The food stands are mostly local food trucks with lots of tasty looking options. There was even a stage with a band playing Tejano music. Shaded seating was in short supply, which I immediately realized when I showed up around 6:30 p.m. and the temperature was still around 95 degrees.

From the press box — covered bleachers that have been fitted with a table — you can also see the now-closed water park just beyond a set of bleachers and the rides being tested for the California State Fair, which officially opens later in the week. The lights from the rides created a neon glow that blended beautifully with the horizon of the setting sun. Once the fair begins, there will even be a monorail that runs so close to the field that a Republic employee told me they’ve considered selling it as “premium” spectator seating.

As the game neared kickoff — and temperatures had thankfully dropped to just under 80 degrees — there were further clues that this was not MLS. The game ball was delivered from a helicopter by a California Highway Patrol officer; the players marched in while fireworks were set off from a truck; and an on-field announcer implored the crowd to “make some noise” as the DJ played loud music punctuated by honking horns.

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It was a similar story during the game: The commentator read commercials during play, and players who were perceived to be slowing down the game were taunted with a “Milking the Clock” graphic sponsored by a local dairy.

At halftime, they lined up hundreds of kids and just had them run all over the field. That’s it, just hundreds of kids running all over the field for no reason other than it seems like fun.

It might have been a little cheesy, but it also had undeniable charm. Yes, the sellout crowd was clearly there to see their home team try to beat one of North America’s biggest clubs – and to drink a few $2 Modelos – but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun.

This is American soccer culture.

“It’s great, I love it,” said Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer. “It’s what the Open Cup is all about. I love the trailer we change in, love the atmosphere, their barbecue, their beer garden. I thought it was great.”

For Schmetzer, there’s obviously an additional connection. As someone who played not only in the NASL but in various indoor leagues and then coached the Sounders when they were in the USL, this all seems a little familiar and perhaps it’s a little predictable that he would find it nostalgic.

However, the players seemed to enjoy it just as much.

“I loved it,” said Sounders midfielder Josh Atencio. “The fans were loud. The commentator does a good job of bringing the fans into the game. It’s a cool atmosphere. We’re the away team, but it cheered me up.”

It obviously helped that the Sounders also came out on top. The spongy and jagged pitch might have received a little more negative attention had goalkeeper Andrew Thomas not recovered after botching a back pass in the 2nd minute and nearly allowed a goal. If the referee had not properly looked for a player offside and thus disallowed a potential equalizer, the Sounders might not have praised the various potential deflections so much.

Sounders’ feelings aside, this was something close to the platonic ideal of what we all want from the Open Cup. A lower-league team hosting the big guys – who brought most of their star players with them – in front of a packed crowd fueled by cheap beer and clanking metal bleachers. That’s the stuff worth fighting to keep.

Almost poetically, there was a counterexample across the country.

Atlanta United, which normally draws 40,000 fans for inconsequential midweek games, failed to even crack the 2,500 mark for its quarterfinal against Indy Eleven. So Kennesaw State University’s football stadium was about three-quarters empty, and the entire televised team was virtually devoid of fans. It was the kind of terrible optics that MLS commissioner Don Garber lamented when he lambasted the tournament during the State of the League address earlier this year.

Of course, Atlanta only has itself to blame, as I imagine they could have put on something much more attractive had they chosen to do so. Fittingly, Indy Eleven won the game 2-1, with Atlanta not scoring a single goal until second-half stoppage time.

As the Sounders have become more successful over the years, the importance of the Open Cup seems to be diminishing. At first, it was a way to differentiate themselves from the competition, a trophy they could show as tangible proof that this organization was serious about winning.

But that was also a bit of a convenience. Winning four titles and appearing in five finals in the first six years in MLS was nice, but it was never the most important thing. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Open Cup took a back seat when the Sounders started competing for bigger trophies on a regular basis.

Those four Open Cup titles are all well and good to pad their total, but no one doubted the Sounders’ status as an elite MLS team until they started winning the MLS Cup and the Concacaf Champions League.

Conversely, it may be a little convenient that the Sounders seem to be taking the season more seriously than they have in the last decade in a season when it looked like this was their best chance at a title.

Regardless of how hard Schmetzer’s tongue was against the wall when he said the reason he used so many starters in this game was because “Sounder at Heart wrote a comment that we didn’t take the Open Cup seriously,” he definitely deserves credit for following through on his earlier promises. However they got there, the Sounders seem almost all-in on winning this cup.

In about six weeks, they will host the winner of tonight’s game between LAFC and New Mexico United. By that point, the Sounders have effectively created a situation where they will almost have to field mostly their regular players again. They will play at the Starfire. It won’t feel that different from that game, albeit smaller. The crowd will be a fraction of the crowd they could have drawn at Lumen Field, but it will at least be full. The atmosphere will surely be electric. I’m sure it will be epic. Whether we win or lose, I’m sure we’ll be reminded again why we love the Open Cup.