IT’S US OPEN CUP MATCH DAY ROUND 4! But first a little diatribe…
With much fanfare and back-patting, it was announced last Tuesday that FC Cincinnati is officially MLS expansion bound. They will finish the rest of this season in USL. And next season, FC|C will make their highly anticipated jump to the “big league.”
Let it be known, I’m not a fan of MLS. Not one bit. I think it’s a mediocre product with too many teams. It all has a very corporate, manufactured feel. Yet it’s next to impossible to find an MLS match on TV, making it really difficult to follow any team. So I’m not super excited about this FC|C to MLS news at all. I remember when it was first announced that Cincinnati was getting a USL soccer team. I was beyond excited. I loved the fact that they were in USL even though I didn’t know much about what the USL was, how many teams there were or really much of anything. I knew it was the second or third division and that was awesome. I was excited. For me, the fact that they were a lower division team sweetened the pot. There’s something about cheering for the little guy. And then we went to the first FC Cincinnati match at Nippert Stadium and they had me, hook, line, and sinker. It was all so magical. Not far into the inaugural season, talk of jumping to MLS kept getting louder and louder. Talks of soccer-specific stadiums. And I could feel my enthusiasm starting to waver little by little. In my opinion, it would be really hard to improve on any great number of things in regards to the club. I think it would be pretty easy for the experience to take a nose-dive. FC|C had a really good thing going in USL. They’re the big fish in a relatively small pond. More than likely by moving to MLS, they’ll just be another midmarket team in a vast ocean of competitiveness. Their impressive USL attendance numbers will put them near the bottom of the top ten in MLS. It’s doubtful they’ll even rank in the top ten once they move into their new 21,000 seat soccer-specific-stadium in the West End neighborhood of Cincinnati.
To me, the only good news that came out of MLS expansion announcement was that the team will play its first two seasons of MLS soccer at Nippert Stadium while their new soccer-specific stadium is being built. My biggest concern is right off the bat with the move to MLS is ticket prices. Are we still going to be able to afford our season tickets next year? USL Season ticket prices are relatively affordable. Are MLS season ticket prices going to affordable as well? Probably not with the seats we’ve had the last three seasons. But perhaps if we moved to cheaper seats. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Tonight, we paid $30 a seat to watch a US Open Cup match that was one the most lackluster soccer games I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Remember last season’s US Open Cup run when FC|C played Columbus Crew and there was so much excitement? Or when they played Chicago Fire and the ecstasy of winning that shootout? I still get goosebumps thinking about the electricity that crackled through Nippert Stadium leading up to the match against New York Red Bulls. There was none of that tonight. Just a future MLS expansion team against a former MLS expansion team who currently sit in ninth place out of twelve teams in their conference. All I could think the whole match was, is this a precursor to what we have to look forward to next season?
At the half, it was nil-nil…
Sprinkles didn’t even bother coming to this match. Second half…
And at the end of 90 minutes, it was still 0-0…
At the end of the first 15 minute extra time, you guessed it 0-0…
And at the end of the second 15 extra time, still 0-0…
On to the penalty kick shootout…
I recorded the entire shootout in case something awesome happened…
And it did not. FC Cincinnati lost the shootout 3-1. I hope I’m wrong about MLS2Cincy. But this is what I imagine all the matches to be like next season when FC Cincinnati jump to MLS. Boooooooring. Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised. All I know is that I’m going to enjoy the final season of USL soccer in Cincinnati and deal with MLS and all the nonsense it brings with it later. 😐⚽️❤️
UPDATE: I just discovered that for $5/month you can watch all the USL and MLS matches live through ESPN+ on the ESPN app. Done and done.
Next up for FC Cincinnati in US Open Cup play, FC|C will host Minnesota United of MLS at Nippert Stadium on Wednesday, June 6th. We’ll see you there! 😀⚽️🌮❤️
IT’S MATCH DAY! THE MATCH DAY! US Open Cup semi-finals between New York Red Bulls of MLS and our FC Cincinnati. Live from Nippert Stadium…
It was a match surrounded with such eager anticipation that my parents drove all the way down from Michigan for it. FC|C head coach Alan Koch said before the match that his upstart FC Cincinnati US Open Cup Cinderellas should be known as ‘FC Disneyland.’ Speaking of Disneylands, Nippert was buzzing childlike excitement and wonder…
They’re in the process of installing a brand new huge video scoreboard at Nippert. It’s going to be the same size as the scoreboard out in left field at Great American Ballpark…
At the other end of Nippert was a little make-shift video screen…
At the New York Red Bulls end of Nippert, the US Open Cup semifinal banner down in the corner was pretty incredible…
There’s Red Bulls and sometimes USMNT star, Sacha Kljestan…
A sell-out crowd in the neighborhood of 36,000 was expected for tonight’s semifinal. Any number over 35,613 would have broken the current attendance record set in the 2011 US Open Cup final between the Seattle Sounders and Chicago Fire. But we fell just short of that mark tonight, there were 33,250 at tonight’s match which is a new US Open Cup non-final attendance record. And I just missed getting a photo of the attendance when it was announced because they put it on the runner board, not the little video board…
Red Bulls pulled one back to make it 2-1…
And then they tied the game…
At the full-time whistle, it was still 2-2. This one’s going into extra time…
It’s going to be the NEW biggest match of the season! Heck. It’s going to be the biggest match in the short but remarkable history of FC Cincinnati…
Our tickets for the huge US Open Cup semi-final match between FC Cincinnati and New York Red Bulls of MLS tarrived in the mail last night…
And it’s a good thing we’re season ticket holders with the first opportunity to buy our tickets to the match almost immediately after the US Open Cup quarter-final win over Miami FC because it was just announced this morning that CINvNY is officially…
Tickets went on sale to the general public yesterday at 1 pm and this morning it was just announced that FC Cincy’s US Open Cup semi-finalmatch at Nippert Stadium is officially SOLD OUT! FC|C President and General Manager Jeff Berding said the sales team sold 16,000 tickets in roughly seven hours. WOW. Just wow.
“The atmosphere at Nippert Stadium is going to be spectacular.” And I cannot wait! 😀⚽️🏆❤️
Per Orange & Blue Press, Djiby is the first player in the Modern Era to score four game-winning goals in the same US Open Cup tournament. At the end of the pitch, FC|C’s star goalkeeper Mitch Hildebrandt hasn’t allowed a goal in 469 minutes of US Open Cup play. Starting from the 11th minute of the 2016 USOC loss to Tampa Bay, Hildebrandt has not conceded a single goal, leaving him just 4 minutes shy of the modern-day record, held by Jon Conway. Conway had a 473 consecutive minutes streak for San Jose between 2000 and 2001. And if you string Mitch’s streak together with Dallas Jaye’s 120 minutes of clean-sheet play versus AFC Cleveland in the second round, FC Cincy hasn’t allowed a goal in a staggering 589 minutes of US Open Cup play, also a Modern Era record. Zero goals conceded in 589 minutes of play. WOW!
There are now just four teams left in the 2017 US Open Cup: San Jose Earthquakes, Sporting Kansas City, New York Red Bulls and our FC Cincinnati…
In the 2017 USOC semi-final, FC|C will face New York Red Bulls. AT NIPPERT STADIUM.
FC|C will host the Red Bulls after wins against AFC Cleveland, Louisville City FC, Columbus Crew, Chicago Fire and now Miami FC. With their win over Miami, FC Cincinnati became the first non-MLS side to reach the US Open Cup semi-finals since Richmond Kickers in 2011. And while a USL team has not made the USOC semi-finals since 2011, a USL squad has not hosted a semi-final draw since 2008, back when Charleston hosted and beat the then-USL Seattle Sounders.
Regardless of what happens against Red Bulls, it’s been such an epic US Open Cup run. It’s been like the Energizer bunny, it just keeps going and going and going. Hopefully, they can keep it going again. We’ll see you at the 2017 US Open Cup semi-finals!
😀🏆⚽️❤️
This evening FC Cincinnati played away to Miami FC in the quarter-finals of the 2017 US Open Cup. And there were numerous watch parties around the city and Northside was no exception. We headed down to Second Place to meet up with our friend JJ and one of her friends. We arrived about a half hour before the match and Second Place was already packed. There weren’t any open seats at the bar, in fact, there weren’t any open seats to be found in the whole place. It was standing room only…
And as the match got underway, it kept getting more and more crowded…
With the match still 0-0 at halftime, we decided to break camp and watch the second half just up the block at Higher Gravity. We made it just before it started pouring…
We managed to actually find a seat at Higher Gravity, and watch FC|C knock Miami FC out of the US Open Cup by the final score of 1-0…
Can you believe it? Our FC Cincinnati is moving on to the 2017 US Open Cup semi-finals! What an incredible night! 😀⚽️🏆❤️
IT’S MATCH DAY! And if you thought there was a buzz around FC Cincinnati playing Columbus Crew at Nippert Stadium, prepare to get your mind blown. US Open Cup Round of 16. FC Cincinnati versus Chicago Fire. Live from Nippert Stadium. There was soooo much hype around this match…
Yesterday, US Soccer declared Cincinnati, Ohio: Soccer City USA. There was also a scheduling change. The match was pushed back from 7:30pm to 8pm to accommodate television schedules. FC Cincy matches are usually streamed on YouTube and broadcast locally. This match was first set to broadcast on ESPN2. But then it was moved to ESPN. This marked the first time a US Open Cup match outside of the semifinal or final had been televised on an ESPN network. And… FC Cincinnati was the first USL team to be featured on ESPN since the Rochester Rhinos lifted the cup in the 1999 Open Cup Final. Leading up to the match, not so subtle hints were dropped that ticket sales surpassed those of the Columbus Crew match, that all the tarps covering seats in Nippert Stadium had been removed to accommodate the crowd because this was going to be one of the BIG ones. Even SBNation‘s daily soccer email newsletter, Backheel Breakfast made note of tonight’s match at Nippert Stadium…
When I got home off the bus, I switched backpacks, grabbed our tickets, we hopped in our Uber and we were off to one of the most highly anticipated matches of this soccer season…
We got to Nippert super extra early just in case there were silly, massive crowds or ridiculously long lines…
But we got there so early that I think we beat most everyone to the stadium…
Up there was the ESPN MLS video truck…
A mere seventy minutes before kick-off. That was cutting it kinda close. 😜🙃
There’s Bastian Schweinsteiger. He’s the former captain of the German National Team and the fourth most-capped German player of all time. Before joining Chicago Fire at the beginning of the season, he used to play for Bayern Munich and then Manchester United. And now he’s at Nippert Stadium…
I didn’t know this until after the match but Chicago Fire has lifted the US Open Cup four times and been runners-up twice. The most of any MLS team.
There were a fair number of Chicago Fire supporters who came out to the match…
That guy on the right held his two-sticks backward for most of the pregame…
O say can you see…
Cool tifo for today’s match…
Cincinnati, Here We Go!
Here we go…
Sooo many people…
Both teams had more than a few good chances but neither team could capitalize on their opportunities, and the score was 0-0 at the half. And we were pretty happy with that. Chicago Fire really came out on er… um, fire. They really took the game to FC|C in the beginning of the matchbut the orange and blue stood their ground. Eventually, FC Cincy got more of the ball and created some really good chances…
SPRINKLES!
It was another beautiful night for a soccer match indeed…
Here’s the complete shootout as we saw it from our seats…
This match tops the Columbus Crew match but not by much. I put this night right next to being at GABP when Todd Frazier won the Home Run Derby. NUTS. Just nuts. A raw outpouring of emotion and pride for your city and your team. And there really aren’t words. After the match was over and after the smoke had cleared, Genifer and I were standing on our seats, looking around, mouths hanging open and all we could muster was, “WOW!” I didn’t want to leave because I was afraid I might wake up for this incredible dream I was having. Only it wasn’t a dream. This was really happening.
It was simply unbelievable. There really aren’t words.
Eventually, we managed to finally pull ourselves away and head for home…
499 – Number of minutes since the last time FC Cincinnati conceded a goal in U.S. Open Cup play. Ever since the 11th minute in the loss at Tampa Bay June 1st of last year, the combination of Hildebrandt and backup Dallas Jaye have completely shut down the opposition over the four games this year (three 1-0 wins and the 0-0 result vs. Chicago). All of Hildebrandt’s 10 saves came in the second half and extra time, not including those stellar three blocks in PK time.
FC Cincinnati shows there is no limit to what American soccer can become
On Wednesday night, over 32,000 people showed up to watch a minor-league team play in a scarcely covered secondary competition. It was incredible.
And there was this article by Forbes. I’m sure there were a million others, all making note of what is going on here and what took place tonight just like Taylor Twellman and Alexis Lalas. Not surprisingly, one of them was ESPN’s Sportscenter…
We’ve already received our tickets in the mail for a couple of upcoming FC Cincinnati matches are going to be huge. HUGE! First up is the massive Fith Round US Open Cup match at Nippert Stadium against the Chicago Fire of MLS…
And we’ve also received our tickets for this season’s incredible international friendly when FC Cincinnati welcomes Valencia CF of Spain’s La Liga to Nippert Stadium…
And here are our tickets in all their spectacular soccer glory…
To say that we are just a little bit excited for these matches might be the biggest understatement of the season. 😀❤️⚽️
IT’S MATCH DAY! And it’s the Dirty River Derby US Open Cup edition. Our beloved FC Cincinnati were taking on heated rival Louisville City FC at Nippert in thethird round of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup 2017. And if just knocking Louisville out of the Cup wasn’t motivation enough, the winner of this match gets to host Columbus Crew in the fourth round of the USOC…
Kind of a sparse crowd in attendance tonight for such a big match…
Digging the guy in the full FC Cincinnati goalkeeper kit…
When I got home off the bus, I switched backpacks, grabbed our tickets, we hopped in our Uber and we were off to one of the most highly anticipated matches of this soccer season…
T+G 