With J Hutcherson -- I doubt too many people are keeping late hours trying to figure out how to make every US Open Cup game follow the Portland - Seattle template. Largest crowd for a single game that wasn't a final last night at PGE Park, clocking in at a little over 16,000. It's not the first example of a small part of the tournament deciding to take it very seriously.
The '98 Chicago Fire spent to get the final at Soldier Field and the crowd turned out accordingly. It was misty, that game introduced thundersticks to American soccer, and the Fire got the result. Within a couple of years, they too were playing their Open Cup games in alternative venues with makeshift starting elevens.
You wonder what Seattle would've looked like last night had they not drawn Portland away. The Sounders are playing their home games in a small stadium twelve miles south of Qwest Field. Their run through the MLS Play-In bracket was courtesy of their reserves.
Same story as the other MLS participants that won't be bothered unless they're convinced it's a special occasion. Like a competitive game against your former rival no longer on your League schedule.
Cue the traveling support and the creative goal celebrations. Yet it's a game that will always be about special consideration rather than broader implications. That's the Open Cup story in the modern era.
What the Open Cup has become is a competition with a lot more ebb than flow. Considering that there's not a lot of promotional push - much less dollars - put up towards making this tournament factor, maybe that's fair enough.
Sure, these are games on the schedule, but the same is true for SuperLiga and the CONCACAF Champions League. If it becomes a question of importance for secondary competition, the Open Cup is at a competitive disadvantage. Aside form the occasional one-off, there's no indication that changes.
Moving on, North American professional indoor soccer will reportedly be down a league some time tomorrow, with the Xtreme Soccer League going on hiatus. That's the home of former Major Indoor Soccer League clubs Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, and New Jersey. How many of them end up with the rest of the MISL clubs that went onto form the National Indoor Soccer League is an open question.
An even better one is figuring out how any indoor league can make the economics work for all of their clubs.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
