There have been a variety of moments during Sounders FC’s four Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup title runs when the enterprise seemed to be in dire jeopardy. When it felt as though a faint wind could topple the entire venture.
Never was it tested more vociferously than in 2014, the year Seattle brought the cup back home.
Seattle’s cup runs from 2009-2011 were packaged with their own set of challenges. As with any tournament experience, nothing came all that easily. But the U.S. Open Cup has been steadily increasing its number of teams since the field ballooned from 40 to 64 in 2012. That number went up to 68 a year later and hit 80 in 2014. This season, the field began with a record 91 teams.
By the start of last year’s tournament, the field had doubled since the last time Seattle won it, meaning the Sounders would have to win five matches instead of the four required of them in their first three title jaunts.
Incredibly enough, Seattle weathered the storm anyway.
In 2014, Sounders FC became just the second club in the tournament's history to win five games en route to the title, including four against MLS clubs. Seattle’s tournament was a mixture of blowouts and nail-biters, of six-goal shellackings and penalty shootouts. But in the end, the team managed to emerge with their fourth U.S. Open Cup crown. That put them level with the Chicago Fire for the lead among MLS clubs and moved them into second all time. One more ties them for the lead with Bethlehem Steel and Maccabi Los Angeles, neither of which has even existed since 1982.
So where does 2014 stack up amongst the others?
“Easily the most fulfilling,” said Scott, who’s entering his 11th cup season with Sounders FC. “It was one of the best runs because almost all of those games were against MLS clubs. You usually find yourself pitted against lower division clubs for a couple rounds at least, and that run we had to go through MLS clubs to do it.”
The only match Sounders FC played against a non-MLS opponent came in the team’s first match in the Fourth Round against PSA Elite. At that point in the tournament, PSA Elite was the lowest-ranked team left in the field as a member of the fifth-tier United States Adult Soccer Association, but they’d earned their way into the field of 32. A steady penalty shootout win over a well-established LA Galaxy II side in the Third Round put Sounders FC on high upset alert.
Seattle needn’t have worried. After a scoreless opening 23 minutes, Brad Evans hit a penalty to start the ball rolling on an eventual 5-0 win in which four different players scored. From there out, Sounders FC would have to trudge through an MLS team per round to return to the top of the heap.
Seattle drew the San Jose Earthquakes in the fifth round, and for just the fourth time in 10 years of U.S. Open Cup matches at Starfire Stadium, the team found itself trailing. But the sting of Steven Lenhart’s 24th minute goal lasted less than two minutes. In the 26th, Kenny Cooper lashed home this third goal in two cup matches, and the teams took that 1-1 draw into extra time and then penalties.
READ: USOC & Seattle: Part I - Legends of the tournament
That’s when the magic of Starfire Stadium struck again. Sounders FC hit all four of its penalties while the Earthquakes crumbled under pressure, Alan Gordon and J.J. Koval missing the final two. On Seattle marched.
The next match quickly became a classic, all-time affair that earned its place among the most memorable Sounders FC wins in its history at the competition. For the third time in its MLS era, Seattle had drawn the Portland Timbers in the U.S. Open Cup. And for the third time, Sounders FC used the fixture as a stepping stone to a trophy.
Seattle bossed the quarterfinal against the Timbers, controlling the tempo and the midfield by extension in a game played with a number of first team regulars on both sides. So when Osvaldo Alonso’s acrobatic effort off a Lamar Neagle cross put the team ahead in the 69th minute, the Timbers had work to do. They were playing from behind.
All seemed secured for Seattle when Darlington Nagbe scored a dagger from an impossible angle in the third minute of a three-minute stoppage time period at the end of regulation. It was an incredibly stiff blow with the game so close to over. But as it has ever been at Starfire Stadium, Seattle found a reserve of energy and powered into the extra time with renewed vigor. So when Cooper scored in the 110th and Marco Pappa drove it home with a goal in the 115th, it felt like the continuation of a work this team began in this competition 20 years ago.
“The Portland game last year was one of those games where you felt it could’ve gone both ways, and we were able to kind of turn it on in the end and beat them in overtime,” Scott said. “But that one sticks out because I think it was almost feeling a little hard done by with the way it ended in regulation and being able to suck it up and pull it out in PKs.”
Boosted by yet another propellant win over the Timbers, Sounders FC waltzed into their semifinal matchup against the Chicago Fire and made history. Seattle ripped open the Fire 6-0, the largest margin of victory in club history and tied the club record for the most goals scored in a single game. Notably, Cooper scored the final two goals less than a minute apart to notch six in just four matches. He finished as the competition’s leading scorer and Player of the Tournament.
In the finale, Seattle had to hit the road for the first time in the competition, which meant playing the Philadelphia Union at PPL Park in Chester, Pennsylvania. Seattle quickly found itself trailing on a tally from Maurice Edu in the 38th, but Seattle scored the last three, including twice in extra time for the second time in the tournament to lift the trophy in a hostile environment.
READ: USOC & Seattle: Part II - How Starfire earned its USOC legend
For Seattle coach Sigi Schmid, who’s guided Seattle through all four of its U.S. Open Cup triumphs, separating a favorite is like choosing between children. But it was hard to ignore the significance of 2014.
“Any of them that end in a title are all great,” Schmid said. “I’ve stopped comparing if this one is better than that one. I think the first one is a little special. Any time you do the first of anything (is special), so the first time we won the U.S. Open Cup here is important. But getting three in a row was fantastic. Last year was good because we felt a little hard done the year before. To come back and win it was certainly a very satisfying moment.”
Now, Sounders FC forges ahead into an uncertain future. A ripping draw paired Seattle with familiar nemesis Portland for a fifth time in the U.S. Open Cup’s modern era. To date, Sounders FC is 4-0-0 in those matches, including a 2-0-0 record at Starfire Stadium, where the game will be tonight.
Is a record-tying fifth title in the cards? Can Sounders FC continued its unparalleled dominance at Starfire Stadium? Will another up-and-coming first team hopeful grab the competition by the horns?
All questions to be answered in time. For now, the kings of the cup march on.
READ: USOC & Seattle: Part III - The Sounders FC USOC dynasty
“We’ve earned it,” Scott said. “It’s not this one-off thing we’ve won. It’s something that year-in and year-out we really do well in. We put it in our list of goals at the beginning of the season is to get another Open Cup. It’s not only important for the trophy but it’s important if we need it to get back into the [CONCACAF] Champions League. We lock up that berth because we have an Open Cup. It’s something the club and the players take seriously. We look forward to the games. It’s not something that pops up on the schedule and it’s like, ‘We’ve got a midweek game. Great.’ It’s something we love to do and we’re looking forward to start.”
