Philadelphia is looking for its first major trophy as the club faces 2012 champion Sporting Kansas City in the U.S. Open Cup final on Wednesday.
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The Philadelphia Union take on Sporting Kanas City in tonight’s U.S. Open Cup Final.
The Union and Sporting have prioritized this tournament in 2015, though for different reasons.
KC on the road in MLS: 3-8-4.
Philadelphia is one of the newer clubs in MLS and celebrates their sixth season of existence this year.
Twists in the tale remained – his puzzling red card in the first half of the fifth-round win over D.C. United barred him from the quarterfinals – but Sapong finds himself with two goals in two outings, tying a career-high for league goals with nine from … that 2012 season.
Sporting KC picked up an important point in the Western Conference playoff race with a 1-1 draw against Seattle Sounders FC on Sunday at Sporting Park. The tournament is open to all amateur/professional soccer teams affiliated with U.S. Soccer. While they needed a Dom Dwyer goal from off the bench to save a point late, the kids rewarded Vermes’ trust as they pressed for a victor at the end of the game and Seattle were relieved to take a point. It doesn’t rate high in the “possession” stat because it’s only one turnover and one pass, but I’m happy to call it jogo bonito.
“On the precipice of the Open Cup, it just seemed like there were a few guys who needed it. And a few guys are banged up, to be frank”. Zusi adds an unpredictable element to the attacking third and instead of trying to align DM’s and CB’s with marking him out of the game, it makes much more sense to control the middle third of the pitch and dictate the pace of the game.forcing Kansas to play a game of Cat and Mouse and chase the game at their own will. And while both have shown moments of individual brilliance, they feed off the success of Le Toux. Le Toux did come on as a substitute in the second half. “We understand that we’re away from home”.
But just because Feilhaber is with the ball, and Sporting are a more technical team than they were two years ago, doesn’t mean they actually have more possession than previous incarnations of Vermes’s teams.
Nor does it come from Philadelphia’s consistent proximity to the winners in recent incarnations of this competition. We’ve got everything you need to get set for the final showdown at PPL Park.
Philadelphia had a freaky run to these finals.
That game certainly had the feel of a keynote victory.
It is being reported by Kansas City Cauldron, the SKC loose affiliation of supporters groups, that approximately 800 Sporting fans will be in attendance on Wednesday night.
“It was my first championship”, Sapong. The Red Bulls scored just before the final whistle to send the game into extra time and further besiege the Union goal. On the one hand, the Union owes its place in the final to McCarthy’s penalty-kick heroism … twice. Sporting lifted the trophy in 2012. Tickets for each match day are included in Sporting KC Season Ticket Member packages and can also be purchased online at Ticketmaster.com. The twist comes with the fact that both he and Jamaican worldwide Andre Blake – now returned from a torn right meniscus – have evenly split the Union’s goalkeeping duties in league play since the Open Cup Semifinal. But in one game, for 90 minutes of organization-defining, win-or-go-home competition … To reward them and show them their support isn’t going unrecognized. Earlier this season, I parked my vehicle to attend a game at the stadium and ended up walking alongside the pallbearers of a coffin bearing the legend “Nick Sakiewicz – serial franchise killer”. A replacement goalkeeper being cup-tied, freak injuries and a dismissal from the team have all played a part in second-year pro John McCarthy being the Union’s starter throughout the team’s four-match U.S. Open Cup run this year.
M’Bolhi may have been the better shot-stopper – in a few mythical land beyond one afternoon in Brazil – but MacMath was the better goalie for that Union team.
Whether that win would kick-start a Union project that seems to have been repeatedly in drifting mode since the wave of fan-inspired enthusiasm that inaugurated it, is a matter for conjecture.
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There’s something very special about cup football, and something even more so when it comes to Philadelphia’s rich history with the US Open Cup.
