Maarten Paes has unfinished Cup business.
“It was the first time it ever happened – and a little bit of a disaster,” said the FC Dallas goalkeeper about reaching the Dutch Cup Final in 2020 with FC Utrecht, only to see the traditional April showpiece canceled due to the outbreak of Covid-19. “We beat Ajax in the Semis and, in Holland, the Cup winner also qualifies for Europe [Europa League]. “So we were devastated not to be able to fight for that trophy.”
That peculiar disappointment is front and center in Paes’ mind when he describes the disrupted year of 2020. But so is his sense of perspective and a refreshing tell-it-like-it-is Dutch frankness. “It was very tough for us as a group,” he said of missing out on the chance, as a wide-eyed 22-year-old, of hoisting the 126-year-old trophy. “But, really, the world had bigger problems at the time.”
With the pandemic now in the rearview, and his own career having taken him from his birth country of the Netherlands to the Great State of Texas and Major League Soccer, Paes has another chance to get his big hands around a domestic Cup. This time it’s the U.S. Open Cup trophy, a prize with extra-special meaning at FC Dallas.
His motivation to lift a trophy that bears the name of the club’s former owner and icon, Lamar Hunt, is obvious to his teammates. The club’s fans, and anyone who watched the 2024 edition of the Open Cup closely, would have seen the absolute best of Paes in wins over Memphis 901 and the Tampa Bay Rowdies – where he was every inch the superstar – before a tight 1-2 OT loss to eventual Runners-up Sporting KC eliminated the Texans in the Quarterfinal Round.
“We all know what Maarten can do in goal, we’re talking big things,” said his FC Dallas teammate Logan Farrington, whose emergence from promising, young talent to reliable goal threat helped spark FC Dallas to last year’s Final Eight in the Open Cup. “His quality really shows out there.”
While Paes was not included in the Starting XI for FC Dallas’ Round of 32 opener in this year’s tournament – earning a well-deserved rest during a 3-1 win over Division III AV ALTA FC of USL League One – he was dressed and on the bench, ready to enter in case of emergency.
But you don’t need to look too far back in the Open Cup to know how much of a difference he can make. His performance in last year’s Round of 16 was truly spectacular. One of those showings that will live long in the memory of anyone who was privileged enough to see it.
“He [Paes] was incredible,” added Farrington, who scored the winner in the 2-1 victory, describing how outstanding Paes was in the 2024 Round of 16 on the road against the Tampa Bay Rowdies. “He did everything you could ask of a goalkeeper and more.”
Incredible, yes. Singular, sure. And busy too. Paes, with his quick-as-cat reflexes, made a career-high eight saves in the game. His performance at Al Lang Stadium that day, steps from the warm waters of the Bay in St. Petersburg, prompted all manner of puns and memes on social media: Masterklas Maarten Paes, Thou shall not Paes to name only a few.
“You have to struggle to win in the Cup,” explained Paes, who knows the challenges of meeting lower-division teams in Cup play from his days with both Utrecht and hometown side NIC Nijmegen in his native Netherlands.
“In the Cup, it only matters if you go through or not,” he said ahead of the next test in this year’s Open Cup: A road trip to New Jersey to meet the high-flying New York Red Bulls. It’s a game with a Quarterfinal berth on the line for the two-time Open Cup Champions (1997 and 2016).
“When I was a kid there was a show called Dallas on TV, with the famous J.R. Ewing, and I thought that was what it was going to be like,” Paes chuckled, before getting serious about the place he’s found himself and where he’s “grown a lot on and off the pitch” to become one of the top netminders in Major League Soccer. “But the city is really a center of sports in America – the Rangers, the Mavs.”
Paes has also made it his business to learn the history of his new club, where he’s been since January of 2022, in the Open Cup and beyond. “It might not be as well known to Europeans, but the history here is very interesting to dive into,” said Paes, whose current playing home of Toyota Stadium also houses the National Soccer Hall of Fame and is home to our Open Cup’s original prize: The Dewar Cup. “The Open Cup is at the center of that history for us.”
“It’s a trophy that’s close to our hearts here at FC Dallas. The name Lamar Hunt, a founding father of MLS and this club, is inscribed on the U.S. Open Cup,” said Paes, ahead of the trip to the Northeast.
FC Dallas are undergoing a revival with the arrival of both new coach Eric Quill – formerly of Division II side and two-time Open Cup Quarterfinalists New Mexico United – and the former Major League Soccer MVP Lucho Acosta pulling the strings in the creative role. Acosta’s inclusion in the Starting XI against AV ALTA in the Round of 32 of this year’s Open Cup is a pretty good indication of just how seriously FC Dallas is taking this year’s edition of the historic tournament.
“We’re bringing in some new elements,” said Paes about the FC Dallas side that failed to reach the MLS Playoffs last year. “We’re getting more vertical and attacking more – playing out of the back and playing more attractive soccer.”
You get a sense that Paes’ brain is always working – he’s a man who likes to make a plan in addition to all the saves he can. And there’s another Cup out on the horizon that’s drawing a little bit of his attention. It’s the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in the United States.
“Once the paperwork was done, it was straight into the action,” he said of lining up, not for his native Netherlands but for faraway Indonesia – the huge archipelago in Southeast Asia where his grandmother was born. “I love to embrace certain challenges.”
Paes’ grandmother, born in East Java, passed away last year. But the goalkeeper sees a chance to have “a full circle moment” when the biggest soccer show on Earth rolls next summer in the country he calls home (Indonesia is currently in second place behind Iraq in the second round of Asian World Cup Qualifying). “The last conversation I had with her, I told her about my plan and it brought a big smile to her face.”
But it’s first-things-first for Paes, who’s not the kind to get distracted from the task at hand. He’s three wins away from a place in another domestic Cup Final – and hungry for a chance to fight for the prize.
“The Open Cup will always be important for us here,” he said, planning out his approach, calm and collected and with a keen eye on the outcomes. “This is massive for us, for this club to write history – to embrace the challenge and have a chance to win the whole thing.”
Fontela is editor-in-chief of ussoccer.com/us-open-cup. Follow him at @jonahfontelaon X/Twitter.