TUKWILA — Copa America Centenario has dominated the Puget Sound soccer scene this month, but on Wednesday it will make way for an even older tournament: the U.S. Open Cup.
The club championship of U.S. Soccer began in 1914, two years before Copa America. Two teams — Bethlehem Steel and Maccabi Los Angeles — have won five Open Cups. And on Wednesday, the Seattle Sounders will begin its attempt to join them. The four-time champion Sounders will meet the Kitsap Pumas at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Starfire Sports Stadium.
The Sounders play in Major League Soccer, while the Bremerton-based Pumas are three rungs down in the Premier Development League.
“This is also the beauty of the Open Cup, where you have matches like this,” Sounders coach Sigi Schmid said. “It isn’t always just the top teams against each other. It’s part of the enchantment of the tournament. But for us, it’s a game that we have to be careful about. We can’t be overconfident.”
The Sounders and other U.S.-based MLS teams enter the tournament in this fourth round. Kitsap entered in the second and advanced by beating the Pierce County-based Sounders U-23 and the USL Sacramento Republic.
“It’s a little bit of a David-versus-Goliath type of story,” Schmid said. “They’re a local club. They’re going to put everything out on the table, they’re going to play with tremendous energy — we know that. That’s what they did in Sacramento, and they came away with a result.”
The Sounders have been off since their June 1 league win at D.C. United, and they return to league play Sunday at the New York Red Bulls.
Schmid will not be with his team Wednesday, as he will serve the one-game suspension assessed after the 2015 Open Cup loss to the Portland Timbers, which included multiple red cards. Schmid was suspended for leaving the bench early, and for comments made afterward.
“Last year was very unique and still an experience that sits pretty deep,” he said. “I know our team’s unhappy about it and we’re not happy about some of the things that we did in that game. But now it’s important for us to get focused on Open Cup again because we have been successful in the past, and it’s also a preparation for our MLS games, so I think it’s important on both fronts.”
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