Aaron Long didn’t grow up far from Los Angeles if you’re looking at dots on a map, but he might as well have been a million miles away.
“We were at the end of a dirt road, my folks still live on the end of that dirt road – very small town vibes,you know, the boonies,” he said of being born and raised southwest of Hesperia in California’s high desert, 90 minutes drive from the twinkly lights of LA on the dusty way to Las Vegas. “Closest gas station was five miles, everything else was like ten miles away.”
When it came time for Long to nurture the raw soccer talent he was born with, to try to turn his passion for the game into something beyond kid stuff, he “had to start driving down that hill.”
Dirt roads gave way to big cities and bright lights. Long’s six seasons at the New York Red Bulls led to a Supporters’ Shield and regular MLS playoff berths. There were huge highs, like his Defender of the Year nod in 2018 and a pair of league All-Star selections. Also, crippling lows. A ruptured achilles and nearly a year away from the game in the “one step forward, two steps back” uncertainty of major injury.
The U.S. Open Cup, our country’s most historic soccer competition, ran like a thread through Long’s time out in the bigger world. He tasted every tier of it – going from an amateur early-round hopeful in 2013 to a Runner-up in 2017.
“This is where things start ramping up. Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Final,” said Long, signed by LAFC after six seasons with the New York Red Bulls, where he became one of the top defenders in the league and a regular in the heart of the USMNT defense. “It’s the easiest trophy to win for an MLS team – you start five games away from lifting it up – and we take that very seriously here.
“I’ve been lucky to have been on teams that take the Open Cup very seriously,” said Long, who started LAFC’s 2024 opener on the road against second-division Las Vegas Lights, in their converted baseball stadium, and was an unused sub in a 3-0 win at home against Loudoun United in the next round. “I like to come in swinging.”
Long joined LAFC following the club’s MLS Cup triumph of 2022 – bolstering the high-octane attacking side’s defense and allowing him to play week in and week out in front of friends and family, what he calls the “dream.” Up next in the Cup, on July 10th, is a date with a third straight USL Championship (Div. II) team as New Mexico United travel to the BMO Stadium as major underdogs.
“Cup games always feel different than normal league games, that’s just the nature of it,” said Long, now 31 and a father of two, settled in as one of MLS’ most combative defenders. “The pressure is on the MLS club for sure. These games, against teams from lower divisions, are never easy.
“They’ve got nothing to lose and they can play free and it’s an amazing opportunity and the biggest game of the year,” he added. “Their fans are going to love them if they beat us.”
“These are very dangerous teams,” added Long, known for his no-holds-barred defending style and never, ever refusing to put his head in where it hurts. “And very dangerous moments.”
He’s not just talking here. Long knows the underdog side of the Open Cup too. While in college, playing as a central midfielder at UC Riverside, some of his teammates were members of the Cal FC all-amateur side that made Cup Magic in 2012 when they beat MLS’ Portland Timbers. “Non professional players, Sunday League guys put together this Cinderella run,” he said. “I’m thinking then, they’re playing against MLS teams…that felt like a dream.”
Long made his own first steps in the historic Cup as a part of amateur side FC Tucson’s 2013 run that included wins over a pair of pro clubs. “There’s so much history to it,” Long said of the Open Cup. “It’s been around for such a long time and it means so much to all the fan bases.”
After being drafted and quickly released by the Portland Timbers, Long made his first pro gameday squad in Seattle in 2014 – the very year the Sounders won their fourth title in a mad rush of Open Cup success.
That was only a hint of things to come.
When he signed with the New York Red Bulls in 2016, still just 21, then coach Jesse Marsch, an Open Cup winner from his playing days with the Chicago Fire, looked Long up and down and saw a central defender – not a midfielder. “I don’t want to hear about you wanting to play in the middle,” Marsch told his new signing with trademark bluntness. And a top American defender was born.
Long reached the Open Cup Final in his first full year in New York. That 2017 run was one of those moments that a young player might think will happen again and again as a career progresses and grows – but an Open Cup legend, and Red Bull captain at the time, set him straight on that score.
“Sacha Kljestan was our captain and I remember before the Final in Kansas City, he gathered us all around – he was in his 30s and we were a young team. He said: ‘Some of you might think this is normal, to be in an Open Cup Final, but it isn’t. Making a Final is special and you need to cherish it.’”
In the end, the Red Bulls came up short. Long lost out 2-1 to Sporting KC and his current LAFC teammate Ilie Sanchez. But Captain Kljestan’s words stuck with him. “You just hope you can get back to that place one more time, and like Sacha said, it’s no guarantee – It’s been seven or eight years now...”
That word now hangs there in the air for a few beats. “It’s not an easy thing to do – to get to a Final, or to get back to a Final,” admitted the defender.
Long and his LAFC, with a squad he says is defined by a core that’s “very hardworking and willing to roll up their sleeves,” went undefeated in all competitions in the month of June and sit atop MLS’ western conference standings (as of July 1st). Just three wins away from lifting the oldest trophy in the American game, they’re in a position to align the bright and shining face of modern-day MLS, and all its glitz and glamor, with the country’s oft-overlooked grassroots.
“You always want to get to a Final. It’s the pinnacle for us as athletes,” said Long, at home in LA, or near enough to it, and looking to take that one step farther. “To win some silverware, and try to lift those trophies and to bring that history to a club, it means a lot. You’ve got to take that seriously.
“You do not want to be on the wrong side of an Open Cup upset,” added Long, a world away from the dirt roads of his youth but still with that grit around the edges. “And there’s tons of them. Every year.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of usopencup.com. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.