You won’t find too many former Champions playing in the U.S. Open Cup’s early rounds. It’s the domain, largely, of earnest strivers trying to get a toehold in the game. Amateurs and journeymen pros toiling away in relative obscurity with precious few chances to lift a major national trophy.
That’s not Bill Hamid. He’s a goalkeeper that “always played big” according to Tim Howard, among this country’s greatest-ever minder of nets. A veteran of the USMNT, Hamid has a pair of Concacaf Gold Cup winners’ medals at home and he knows what it feels like to lift the U.S. Open Cup up into a warm early-fall evening after a title run with D.C. United in 2013 that no one saw coming.
“You can’t overstate what the Open Cup means to a team from the lower leagues, from the second division,” said Hamid, who now, at the age of 34 and after lining up for amateur side Virginia Dream in the Qualifying Rounds of this year’s tournament, is the number-one choice between the pipes for USL Championship (Div. II pro) side Miami FC. “You saw what it meant when Sacramento [Republic, of that same USL Championship] went to the Final in 2022. It was massive.
“You see those Cup games coming up on the schedule and you feel it in the locker room. There’s an excitement,” added Hamid, who played in last year’s Open Cup with amateurs NoVa FC and the year before that with USL Championship side Memphis 901. “It’s massive for these clubs and it’s a great thing to have something that’s open to the whole pyramid – the top teams to the amateurs.”
Hamid, who’s suffered injury setbacks, dips in form and an unhappy stint in Denmark over the course of his career, talks about the Open Cup like someone who loves it. The opportunities. The possibilities. The chaos and the magic. All of it. And that has everything to do with not just winning the whole thing back in 2013, but the manner in which it happened. D.C. United beat more MLS teams (four) in their Open Cup run that year than they did in a full 34-game MLS season (3).
It was, by any measure, a horrendous year for D.C. United in league play. They picked up just 16 points from a possible 102 on offer, making their run to the Cup title all the more unlikely and inspired.
“Winning the Cup in 2013 definitely saved my job,”Ben Olsen, who went on to win it again in 2023 with his current club, Houston Dynamo, told USsoccer.com.
“Even in that bad year, [Ben] Olsen was a master at motivating players,” said Hamid of his 35-year-old rookie coach. “It was one of the biggest moments in my career, that Cup, that’s for sure.”
Let’s drift back to 12 years ago, when Hamid – born and raised in Virginia to parents from Sierra Leone – was just 22 and breaking into the pro scene as a spring-heeled goalkeeper, maybe a little raw, but with a rare talent for keeping the ball out of the net. Long gone were the days when D.C. United were the toast of MLS boasting the likes of Marco Etcheverry, Jaime Moreno and John Harkes.
In 2013, that infamous Open Cup-winning year, they had the likes of aging Canadian superstar Dwayne De Rosario and versatile midfield workhorse James Riley (who would eventually win an astonishing five Open Cups as a player). But in goal, Coach Olsen had a true gem.
Hamid was hungry, seemed to take up the whole goal, and was the kind of goalkeeper who could demoralize opponents with his ability to get a hand on everything. And he needed to be that good.
“It was just a terrible year,” Hamid said of 2013, when Olsen famously began resting players in league game so they’d be ready for the Open Cup contests – seeing it, rightly, as the only chance at salvaging the season. “But Olsen was a master at getting guys up for those Cup games. He saw the value in getting the guys motivated so that we could win something in such a horrible year.”
That year’s Open Cup run for D.C. United, like all others, wasn’t straightforward. They needed penalties after a goalless 120 minutes to knock off the Richmond Kickers in their Third Round debut. Next up, De Rosario (35) bagged the last hat-trick of his career to knock off the Philadelphia Union 3-1. D-Ro scored two more in the Quarterfinal and Semifinal (wins over the New England Revolution and Chicago Fire respectively).
It’s worth noting that Joe Willis, current starter for MLS’ Nashville SC (who’ll join our 2025 Open Cup in the Round of 32) was between the posts for those games leading up to the 2013 Final. But Hamid, Olsen’s number-one in league play, was tapped for the Grand Finale. It was a game few expected D.C. to have a chance in – but momentum (and desperation) can play an outsized role in Open Cup glories.
“We had to go to Real Salt Lake, who were really a powerful team at the time, and win on their home field,” you can hear Hamid’s voice go up at the memory. “It was one of the biggest moments of my career and D.C. United’s history as a club. That’s a lesson I always try to pass on now – how this tournament is single-elimination and anything can happen.”
Hamid needed to be perfect in that Final 12 years ago – and he was damn close to that. He pulled off save after save in the second half, defending a slim 0-1 lead thanks to a Lewis Neal goal. When the final whistle went after a second half defined largely by D.C. United hanging on for dear life, Hamid – who’d made six saves on 19 RSL shots – was mobbed by his teammates.
When Hamid was awarded Man of the Match honors that day, no one was surprised. And when he was named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year in 2014, when his shot-stopping heroics helped the side finish top of the heap in the regular season, even fewer eyebrows went up.
Now Hamid, all these years later, is trying to recapture glory in the 110th edition of the Open Cup. This time it’s an even harder task. As the veteran goalkeeper of last year’s worst-performing USL Championship team (Miami FC picked up only 11 points from 34 games) a run to the Final would be close to a miracle. But a re-tooled 2025 Miami FC, led by the prolific Pancho Bonfligio, and his three goals in two Cup games so far, are through to the Third Round.
Up next is a date with USL League mates and 2024 Open Cup Semifinalists Indy Eleven (7:30 pm ET April 16 LIVE on Paramount+) – after two wins in the First and Second Rounds where Hamid only conceded one goal.
And who knows better than this goalkeeper, still pushing in the autumn of his career, how the Cup can offer its hand to the little-hopers and the down-and-outers? “Every game is a Final in the Open Cup – there’s no tomorrow and you have to bring out your all,” said Hamid. “That’s the beauty of it.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of ussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Follow him at @jonahfontela on X/Twitter.