After a spirited third round of action at the end of May,the original 91 entries have been whittled to the final 32. Fourth round matches take place next Tuesday and Wednesday, with the 17 MLS clubs joining the 15 third-round winners in the single-elimination bracket.
One of next week's matchups pairs MLS clubs, with Portland Timbers taking on the San Jose Earthquakes. But like all open domestic tournaments, the real fun comes from the matchups between lower-tier squads and the big boys of the top league. New York City FC, for example, takes on the NASL's New York Cosmos on Wednesday. Columbus Crew battles the Tampa Bay Rowdies, the latter another blast from soccer's first burst of American popularity. MLS-leading Colorado Rapids faces a Rocky Mountain derby clash against the Colorado Springs Switchbacks from the third-tier United Soccer League (USL).
While we're obviously pulling for all underdogs, all the time, we've got our eye on a pair of true longshots that have fought their way from the earliest stages of the competition. Tuesday night, mighty LA Galaxy, with Steven Gerrard, Robbie Keane, and Giovanni Dos Santos, host La Maquina FC, an amateur squad from the fifth-tier United Premier Soccer League.Founded in 2011 and named in honor of the legendary Mexican side Cruz Azul, La Maquina had never before qualified for a U.S. Open Cup. They play their home games at Westminster High School in Los Angeles. And at the moment, they're not allowed to play in the UPSL after having been suspended for six games following a brawl in a match against San Nicholas FC in 2015. They're basically the Bad News Bears. Who, in a few short days, instead of playing in the Astrodome, actually play the Astros.
(In the course of 'researching' this post, I discovered some noteworthy facts. Most important of these, ghoogling 'open cup' results in some interesting results from Frederick's of Hollywood. My apologies to my IT administrator, and you're welcome.)
Posts
27 comments:
wow-- i assumed this was Fat Guy in a Speedo doing his usual bang-up job reporting on the world of soccer . . . nice plot twist rob! are any of these games televised?
It's hard to type while patting myself on the back, but I CRUSHED the 4-mile race in my town today. I won the heavyweight division, which is a category I invented myself.
i'm running a four-mile race at 7:30 this evening. it's supposed to be 85 degrees at race time. pretty awesome. speak well of me after i'm gone.
I slept through the four mile race in TR's town.
I just gogled Paraguay to see where it was on a map. My recollection of landlocked South American countries is not great.
Rob, I will say the nicest things about you.
But GTB needs you. Pace yourself.
85 degrees? Give me a fucking break. It's 85 degrees down here in February. You'll be fine.
TR knows all about Uruguay without googling
It's not the heat, it's the humidity, Mark.
Always annoying when people say that.
it's not the heat, it's the running four miles in the heat. or something.
4 miles in 85 degree heat. You are something.
right, danimal? that 'something' is slow.
my 14 y/o daughter just said, 'i wish i had a penis for five minutes so i could helicopter it'. pretty sure she's hammered.
zson has a penis and he colored it with a black dry erase marker so it turned a grayish/greenish color. He helicoptered in at zwoman and she thought it was infected and called me into the room. I thought he slammed it in a dresser drawer and bruised it. I almost passed out. He thought this was hilarious. I'm pretty sure he wasn't hammered.
that's the best story i've ever heard.
and it IS the humidity! the stupid peruvian place i watched the game at had their doors open so the bar was "open air" and my ass was sweating. certainly not weather to run a 5k + .9 miles.
in other news: i took a two and half hour nap today! and ian is having a b-day sleepover and they are watching "the nutty professor." it's funnier than i remembered.
columbia's coach is named jose pekerman. for reals. i bet he helicopters on the regular.
One of the nine ER trips my 6 y/o has had was b/c when he was urinating at the age of four (when he had to stand on tiptoes to get his wiener over the edge), the toilet seat fell on the head of his wee johnson.
He yelped and his penis head turned black. I know this b/c my wife texted me a photo, along with the message she was taking him to the ER. So I'll never be able to unsee that.
Two hours and four pints of apple juice later, I convinced him to conquer his fears and take a leak again, so we could
Be excused from the ER. The pee flowed freely, both that time and the 17 other times he purged his bladder of the juice later that night.
Did I overshare?
Strong night of penis talk on G:TB. I read these comments to my wife. She's so happy we didn't have a boy. I'm a little sad. Those animals are a special breed.
Columbia or Colombia?
either one. they're not choosy.
i'm having twitter beef with curt schilling. that's not what i expected when the evening began.
Schilling is a dildo. Feel free to tell him that.
You're admitting the bloody sock issue was made-up, I hope.
getting close. he's a fuckstick conspiracy theory-chasing conservative douchenozzle.
But a lot of his views are pretty insightful.
OJ Simpson only had five 1,000 yard seasons. I know it was the age of 14-game seasons, but that was lower than I expected.
Episode 1 of the OJ doc is fantastic.
This thread has assumed the theme of star athletes revered for physical feats who turn out to be fallible human beings less worthy of our adulation than we had figured and hoped.
And that's one to grow on. Grow one!
Post a Comment