The Round of 32 – four rounds deep into our 2025 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup – is the entry point for the Division I teams of Major League Soccer. Top of the pro pyramid in this country since the league launched in 1996, teams from MLS have won all but one of our titles in those nearly three decades.
This year’s MLS representatives number 16 in total, six of them former U.S. Open Cup Champions. But far from an easy glide to the Final, these Major Leaguers will start their hunt for this country’s most historic soccer prize up against lower-league survivors from our early rounds, all of them battle-hardened and eager to spring a Cupset surprise.
With recent history, and the Magic of the Cup, as a guide, any road to the Final of our 110th edition of the Open Cup will be neither easy nor straightforward.
“The Open Cup is always a wild ride,” said Ben Olsen, noted Open Cup lover and head coach of the Houston Dynamo, who will begin life in the 2025 tournament with a tricky road test against USL Championship (Div II) powers Phoenix Rising in Arizona. The Dynamo are one of only four multiple Open Cup Champions among the 16 MLS teams competing (2018 and 2023). Olsen will remember well the feeling of lifting our trophy in Fort Lauderdale in 2023, after beating a Lionel Messi-less Inter Miami 1-2 to become the first team to win an Open Cup Final on the road since Sporting KC did it in 2015.
“Chances to win trophies are rare and if you want to win, you have to hang in there,” added Olsen, who won the Open Cup as a player in 2008 with D.C. United and then again, with that same capital club, as a rookie coach in 2008.
Sticking with Texas, let’s not count out another two-time Open Cup Champion in FC Dallas.
The Frisco-based club won the Open Cup in 1997, back in the days when they were still known as the Burn and featured a fire-breathing horse on their shirts. They repeated the trick, renamed and modernized, in 2016 when, led by Maxi Urruti and a trio of young Americans in Matt Hollingshead, Walker Zimmerman and Kelyn Acosta, they bested the New England Revolution at home in the Final. This year, they’re bolstered by the arrival of former MLS MVP creator Lucho Acosta, who reached the Semifinal of our Open Cup in 2023 with an outstanding FC Cincinnati side that eventually fell in an all-time Open Cup Classic to a magical Messi performance.
This year’s FC Dallas, led by former New Mexico United boss Eric Quill, will have their hands full when they open in the Round of 32 against one of our three surviving Division III sides AV Alta, the pride of California’s Antelope Valley, of USL League One. In addition to the two Open Cup titles, FC Dallas were twice Runners-up in 2005 and 2007.
The team FC Dallas lost to in the 2007 Final, the New England Revolution, are also back for another run at glory in 2025. Our Open Cup is the only trophy that the Foxboro, MA-based side, founding members of MLS with a history going back to 1996, have ever lifted. It’s an opportunity to recreate the glories of that golden generation of Revs players, which included current FC Cincinnati coach Pat Noonan, broadcaster Taylor Twellman and Steve Ralston.
Also on that triumphant New England Revolution team from 2007 was one Khano Smith, the Bermudan winger who’s now the head coach of Rhode Island FC, the USL Championship (Div. II) side the Revs will meet on the road in their brand new soccer-specific stadium in Pawtucket on May 7.
Much like New England, it’s been a minute since a trophy of any kind went up in our nation’s capital. D.C. United’s last title came in 2013 when, led by a young Ben Olsen, they managed to pull off a shock Open Cup run (their third USOC crown in total) despite being statistically the worst team in MLS history that year. This year, they’ll have another Open Cup hero in the manager’s seat as Troy Lesesne, who rose to prominence as a coach when he took New Mexico United to the Quarterfinal in the club’s inaugural year of 2019, looks to guide DCU back to the glory days.
Much like New England, it’s been a minute since a trophy of any kind went up in our nation’s capital. D.C. United’s last title came in 2013 when, led by a young Ben Olsen, they managed to pull off a shock Open Cup run (their third USOC crown in total) despite being statistically the worst team in MLS history that year. This year, they’ll have another Open Cup hero in the manager’s seat as Troy Lesesne, who rose to prominence as a coach when he took New Mexico United to the Quarterfinal in the club’s inaugural year of 2019, looks to guide DCU back to the glory days.
D.C. United will also have the wily veteran presence of former Liverpool, Aston Villa and Crystal Palace man Christian Benteke to rely on when they open at home against 2008 Finalists and USL Championship Div. II powers the Charleston Battery.
Another former Open Cup Champion in the running for this year’s title is Orlando City. Born in the Division II USL Championship, before graduating up to MLS, the Florida-based club lifted our trophy in 2022 on the back of outstanding performances by Uruguayan starlet Facundo Torres and the coaching nous of manager Oscar Pareja – who also helped win FC Dallas the 2016 Open Cup title and recently signed a long-term contract extension to keep him in Orlando for the foreseeable future.
Pareja and his men in purple travel to Al Lang Stadium to meet USL Championship side Tampa Bay Rowdies on May 7.
Last but not least, we must turn our attention to the Chicago Fire. This club from Illinois’ Windy City is inextricably bound up with our Open Cup and its traditions, going all the way back to a League-Open Cup Double they pulled off in their inaugural year of 1998. Since that historic victory, the Fire scooped three more Open Cup titles (2000, 2003 and 2006) and are now on the precipice of becoming the first team from the Modern Era to win five Open Cups – a feat that would put them in the company of legends of yesteryear like Bethlehem Steel, Maccabi LA and the Fall River Marksmen.
Becoming the first MLS team to claim five Open Cup titles will certainly be front-and-center of former USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter’s mind when action begins with a home date against the always dangerous Detroit City FC of the USL Championship (Div. II).
We also have three former Runners-up among the field of competing MLS teams. First up, the Philadelphia Union. Since their founding in 2010, they’ve reached our Final three times (2014, 2015 and 2018). Unfortunately for the club’s committed fans, they lost every one. This year, with Bradley Carnell replacing long-time coach and former Open Cup Champion in his playing days with the Fire, Jim Curtin, the Union will hope to go one step beyond.
The Union start their account at home in Chester against 2024 Open Cup Cinderella Semifinalists Indy Eleven (of the Div. II USL Championship).
Minnesota United FC who, like Orlando City, began life in this country’s Division II pro system, reached all the way to our Final in 2019. There, up against an outstanding Atlanta United and in front of a record crowd for an Open Cup Final, they came up short in a 2-1 loss. This year, they’ll open on the road with a stern test against USL Championship (Div. II) royalty Louisville City in Kentucky.
Another former Open Cup Runner-up in the 2025 mix is the New York Red Bulls (2003 & 2017). They’re led by Sandro Schwarz and hoping to end a title drought that stretches back to their founding in the first year of MLS (as the MetroStars) in 1996. The Red Bulls, and their star Swede Emil Forsberg, have some travel and stiff competition to contend with in their opener – way out west against defending USL Championship toppers Colorado Springs Switchbacks on May 6.
D.C. United’s target man Benteke won’t be the only former English Premier League star to grace the stages of our Open Cup in 2025. Charlotte FC – on many pundits’ short list for multi-front glories this year – recently signed outstanding wideman Wilfried Zaha, beloved by Crystal Palace fans during his seasons with the London club. CFC open their Open Cup account with a North Carolina Derby against Div. II USL Championship side North Carolina FC on the road in Cary.
While never getting up all the way to the Final, two remaining sides did manage to reach the penultimate stage of a Semifinal berth. Out West, the San Jose Earthquakes – now coached by USMNT legend Bruce Arena – took part in the Last Four in 2004 and 2017. The Portland Timbers, for their part, reached that same stage in 2013.
New York City FC reached the Quarterfinals once back in 2019. And so did Nashville SC, now coached by former USMNT boss B.J. Callaghan, back in 2022. Austin FC’s farthest run in their short tenure in the Open Cup was a trip to the Round of 16 in 2023.
Finally there’s St. Louis CITY SC to consider. They may not have won an Open Cup yet, but the city they call home has a special relationship with our competition. The first team from the Gateway City to win an Open Cup was the Ben Millers of 1920. In all, seven teams from St. Louis – including noble old names like Stix, Baer & Fuller and Scullin Steel and Simpkins Ford – have managed to lift our trophy on 12 separate occasions and the city’s fans, with a deep knowledge of and affection for the Open Cup, will be out in force when their side meet Division III Cinderellas Union Omaha at home on May 7.
Fontela is editor-in-chief ofussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Follow him at@jonahfontela on X/Twitter.