Fans of the historic Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup live by its magic moments. And the First Round of the 2025 competition tossed up a good few of those between March 18 and 21. Join us for a look back at eight moments of note from the 32 games in which 114 goals were scored, a slightly aged (and fully frosted) Menace dream-team took the field in KC and six amateur teams – including Queens, NY-based Pancyprian Freedoms and Little Rock’s Rangers – bested their betters with big Cupsets.
The Open Cup is for dreamers. Especially in our early Rounds, when whispers of spring float on the new breezes. Those dreamers – and their dreams – come in all shapes and sizes. From all walks of life too. Our First Round featured police officers by day (like Harpos Dan Whittle and Inter San Francisco’s Ulysses Rivas) and old pros who’ve marched behind this nation’s flag with the USMNT (like Dax McCarty, Sacha Kljestan and Benny Feilhaber). We saw, again in El Farolito yellow, Dembor Benson, who so often turns up like magic at the back post. FORO SC of Dallas lined up behind U.S. Deaf National Team midfielder Braden Anderson, with the team’s accountant on the bench and kitted in case of a need. Former Open Cup Champion Bill Hamid kept his goal tidy in SoFla and a whole raft of young hopefuls – community college kids and the pride of their local pick-up games – played too. Some, those aging out but still hanging in, are putting on the extra pounds that come with jobs and mortgages and kids. Others are lean and hungry and waiting to be seen, to be plucked from obscurity, and delivered into the raging seas of realized dreams. In an age of empty slogans, something truly open, wide and welcoming like a hug, is a rare thing.
Sacha Kljestan and Friends, more attuned these days to the cushy couches of their media gigs, deserve some good deal of credit. They may be a little softer in the middle than they were in their primes, but they turned up to play in the fullest of First Round weather. An evil wind blew cold in Kansas City, and the suddenly star-studded Des Moines Menace were up against the young hungry ones who train every morning with an aim to break into the Sporting Kansas City first team. The names in this Menace side were once the toast of Major League Soccer – Matt Hedges, Ozzie Alonso, Dax McCarty and Bradley Wright-Phillips. The list is extensive, and included one Benny Feilhaber – the former USMNT star – up against the SKC II team he coached for three seasons. Awkward? Nah. It’s a game and it's there to be played. In the end, a pair of spot-kicks from Sacha Kljestan – famed Open Cup Romantic and pied piper of this Des Moines Menace off-season Open Cup experiment – was the only difference between the sides. Another day, maybe it goes another way.
Let’s turn our heads back west, to the coast and sunny LA. Terminus of American hopes and dreams. Our defending Champions LAFC aren’t in contention for this year’s Open Cup, and miss them we will, but two MLS NEXT Pro clubs of young dream-weavers most certainly are in the mix. One, LAFC2, share the same practice pitches with Hugo Lloris, Olivier Giroud and the rest of our 2024 U.S. Open Cup Champions. And maybe they got a word of advice or two from their big brothers in black and gold before handing out a mauling (7-1, over FC Arizona) in the First Round. Their crosstown rivals, Ventura County FC, academy side of LA Galaxy who last won our Open Cup 20 years ago with Landon Donovan leading the lines, were similarly inclined toward the lucky number seven (7-0 over Laguna United). These are big fat numbers, even by Hollywood standards.
So let’s pause to consider other numbers. We have it on good authority that there are things to be learned from equations and integers, percentages and factors. First up, of course, are goals. There were 114 scored across the 32 games of our First Round – and that’s more than 3.5 per game, so damn. We only have four shaming fingers to wag at FC Cincinnati 2, the NY Pancyprians, Asheville City and Greenville Triumph who went 120 minutes without a single goal. But we also have a hearty huzzah for NY amateurs the Pancyprians for pulling out the result in the shootout. There was an age gap in KC for the books – 15 years, in fact, with Des Moines averaging out at 35 and SKC’s kiddoes at 20. We’ll end this section with a note about one goal in particular. Baptiste Debuire’s peerless header in El Paso was, by the measure of many, a meaningless consolation against the local Locomotive pros. His side, the beloved Colorado-based Harpos FC, were down 5-0 and the result was long gone. But the exuberance of the celebrations speaks to some greater design, a deeper understanding of meaning. To dust storms and turbulence, and trips across state lines with pals to take on a pro team. Bravo, Harpos. Bravo, all. There’s no number for this.
We must now turn our eyes to the extreme Northeast and the great state of Maine. It’s an odd place, beautiful and mysterious and impenetrable. But Maine’s new – and only ever – pro soccer team began life with an Open Cup doozy. Portland Hearts of Pine, of USL League One, played their first-ever competitive game at Lewiston High School in front of four thousand fans. It was the culmination of years of grinding and vision-spinning by founder Gabe Hoffman-Johnson, the tactical nous of quirky head coach Bobby Murphy and the players, all recently signed, who came out like a house on fire on a misty Maine evening. The bundled thousands were treated to a birthday goal, a double and a fine free-kick. The Open Cup is a repository for generous romanticism, as we’ll never tire of telling you, but it’s also cruel as a blade. The sacrifice to the gods of Maine’s new pro delight was one CD Faialense, amateurs from Cambridge, MA, who piled in vans and took off work early, only to be battered to the tune of 4-0. But hear me now, good friends, there is no one without the other. We should all applaud the courage and the plight of the underdog – and not only when they bite hardest.
Six amateurs did, however, manage to shake the pillars of heaven. And we’ll forever delight in such achievements – born of hunger, aided by luck and wild commiserations with circumstance and the almighty. FORO SC made it two-for-two in the Open Cup, following up last year’s Cupset over Austin FC II, with another win against USL League One new boys Texoma FC. That was the lone shock result on Tuesday, but Wednesday delivered big. Virginia Dream – in their Open Cup debut – made weirdly easy meat of 1995 Champions and Div. III pros Richmond Kickers on the road (3-1). El Farolito – who won the Open Cup in 1993 and have made an annual habit of shocking the formbook – also won on the road in Utah against RSL’s MLS NEXT Pro affiliate Real Monarchs. Des Moines Menace, technically amateur but with asterisks (and aging stars) everywhere, did the job too. Little Rock Rangers (of USL League Two) pulled off the only win over a Div. II pro side (Birmingham Legion of the USL Championship and our 2023 Quarterfinalists). Thursday then finished with a blast from the past – as NYC’s Pancyprian Freedoms dragged their game against FC Cincinnati 2 through 120 scoreless minutes of regular and extra-time before hitting the final spot kick to win out 5-4.
The name New York Pancyprian Freedoms may not roll right off the tongue. But fans of the so-called Dark Days of USA’s Soccer – between the fading away and ultimate collapse of the old NASL and before the rise of MLS – will remember the legendary New York City club well. They won our Open Cup on three occasions – 1980, 1982 and 1983 – when our tournament was exclusively semi-pro and amateur. These Pancyprians are also, and by rights, the best amateur team in the country, having lifted the USASA National Amateur Cup for 2024. And by winning out in their First Round game this year, they become the first reigning National Amateur Champion since the brave battling heroes of Christos FC in 2017 to beat a pro side in the Open Cup. Pancyprian player-turned-coach Andreas Chronis saw the Cupset coming. “I think player for player, we're better than them,” he said. “I think it'll be an eye-opening experience for our opponents.” And so it was.
This is the part we hate. And that’s no put-on. All the excitement and the pumping fists have their brutal counterpoint in hung heads and missed chances. But there are no losers here, not by any common definition. CD Faialense, you were beaten, yes, but you were a part of something huge and you carried yourselves with honor. West Chester United, and our old friends Blaise Santangelo running the show, you pushed the pros of Loudoun United all the way – same as the legendary Long Island Rough Riders did with Charlotte Independence and Sarasota Paradise did against FC Naples. Appalachian FC, love is too weak a word. Thanks for your grit and your fun and your truly inspiring belief in improbable things. To Ballard FC and hard-fighting Duluth, and of course our old bros, Harpos, we’ll see you all again soon. And we’ll be happy when we do.
So that’s that. Let’s take a breath, gather ourselves and go again – for a Second Round between April 1 and 2. It’s right there around the corner. That constant tomorrow.
See you soon, friends.
Fontela is editor-in-chief of ussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.