Ryan Hollingshead is so often the tireless beating heart of a hugely talented LAFC side. Having dusted himself off from a dramatic defeat to the Columbus Crew in Sunday’s Leagues Cup Final, he’s now more than ready to step into the breach again with a place in another Final – this time, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup – on the line against the Seattle Sounders in Tukwila, Washington.
Having won this country’s oldest prize once before, in 2016 with FC Dallas, Hollingshead knows better than most how “huge it would be” for LAFC to bring home an Open Cup trophy for the first time…
Condolences on a tough loss in Sunday’s Leagues Cup Final. Is it a good thing to have another knockout game to jump right into – the U.S. Open Cup Semifinal against the Seattle Sounders?
Ryan Hollingshead: It doesn’t matter what the competition is or who the opponent is, you just want to get back out onto the field and play a game as soon as you can. It was a huge let-down for us, being seconds away from a shootout, right there with a chance to win the game. It’s hard to bounce back, but that’s the thing with sport – there’s no time to feel bad or sad or to wallow. You have to bounce back right away. There’s a game right after and you just want to get back out on the field and get going again.
It’s a really quick turnaround from a road Final on Sunday to a road Semifinal on Wednesday – what do those days in between look like?
RH: At this stage in the season, with midweek games coming at you fast, there’s not much training. You just try to get in as much as you can, get your body ready and do the recovery you need. We’ve had a good rotation going, with guys who’ve started some games and others on the bench who are ready to step up and get going. This is important in circumstances like these.
You didn’t have the deepest squad at the start of this year’s Open Cup – but new players, including former French World Cup winner Olivier Giroud, have plumped up the roster of late. How important is that?
RH: We’ve been building our depth through the whole season. When we started out we had 11, maybe 13 guys, who were available and had to play big minutes. Now we’re up to 18 or so – a good amount of subs that we can rely on. This has really helped us push the level up. It’s been huge through all these long stretches, where we’re reaching the Semis and Finals of tournaments and there’s just no stop to catch your breath. Our depth is huge, and necessary, and the club worked very hard to make sure we got where we needed to be.
You meet the Seattle Sounders in Wednesday’s Open Cup Semifinal and it’s a team you’ve beaten all three times you’ve faced them this year. What’s the secret?
RH: It’s true. We’ve had success against Seattle in our recent games. But the problem with the Sounders is that they’re so dangerous. If you fall asleep for a few seconds, and you don’t have your head on right, they can really punish you. We know how talented they are and that’s why we’ve been so focussed on getting things right against them. We’ve had to have the right mentality and take nothing for granted. If you’re not 100 percent from minute-one, they can get on you. And if they score first, things can go bad quickly. We’ve been good at getting that first goal against them. We’ll need to try to do it again.
You’re two wins away from bringing a first U.S. Open Cup home to LAFC – a tournament you won with FC Dallas in 2016. What would that mean for you and for the club?
RH: At the start of this year we made it a point to say we wanted to win as many trophies as we could. First was the Leagues Cup, and we reached the Final. But that’s over. Now we have the chance to move on and try to win the Open Cup. It would be huge for the club. It’s not just about winning titles and trophies – because that’s always your goal as a player. It’s about the history of the Open Cup and the meaning it has for the country and for football in this country. We have a good chance to get ourselves into another Final here and that means a lot to us.
Fontela is editor-in-chief of usopencup.com. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X.