Ok all this can be the thread to discuss the US Open Cup qualifying and when we hopefully do qualify the Cup tournament itself.

Remember we have two more games to go to qualify so we could use a nice showing Saturday to help our boys out, so drag a whole mess of friends down there, its free after all!

And this is getting way ahead of myself and really a crazy dream but I was looking at the CONCACAF Champions League qualifying and for the United States the winner of the US Open Cup gets a spot in the Champions League. Now can the Bucks honestly do that? I don't think so it would be insanely difficult for a PDL team even as good as the Bucks to win the Open Cup, but it never hurts to dream!

It would be interesting to see what would happen if a PDL team qualified for the CONCACAF Champions League seeing as that tournament starts in August and goes through to the next spring, and most PDL teams are made up almost entirely college players who are on scholarship and therefore committed to their schools after the summer...

That means that the herd can play. I am ready to play pachucca.

Haha ya I bet you are Craig. And ya I'd be interested to see what happens if a PDL team made it.

Well our Bucks did it, they were able to qualify for the US Open Cup with a 2-1 win today!

I'll speculate on the first-round matchups. I see that Pittsburgh did make it from USL-2, so for arguments, I'll move them into the "Midwest" regional. That leaves one more pro team to move to the Midwest; I have a funny feeling that it will be Rochester. (A second guess would be if they wanted to fly Miami up here.)

That would put a matchup of Michigan-Rochester. (Rochester could easily enough bus over to here, especially if they can shimmy through Ontario to cut the travel time.) Minnestota and St. Louis are the two "far midwest" teams, so let's pair them. That leaves Pittsburgh and Cleveland to match up with the two Chicago USASA teams, in some fashion.

And if you assume that Cleveland will beat their USASA squad, it would set up a good geographic pairing of CLE versus the MICH-ROCH winner.

Now let's quote the exact rules from the Handbook, knowing that rules are made to be tweaked, especially in the USSoccer world: http://www.ussoccer-data.com/docfile/2008OpenCupHandbook.pdf

"Teams competing in the First Round will be assigned to one of four geographic groups, each containing an equal number of professional and amateur teams. A blind draw will then be conducted within each group to determine all First Round pairings. The placement order of the First Round pairings will determine the match-ups for the Second Round. After the First Round, MLS teams will be added to the bracket for Third Round games based on geographic considerations."

"Pairings will be arranged to prevent the possibility of a lower division team playing a parent club (e.g.: Richmond Kickers Future [PDL] will not be pitted against Richmond Kickers [USL2], should both teams be in the competition in the same round) except for the Championship Game."

"Teams will enter the tournament and be matched with an opponent according to the following provisions:
-- First Round: Amateurs vs. Professionals. Eight USASA regional qualifiers and eight PDL squads are paired against eight USL Second Division clubs and eight USL First Division sides.
-- Second Round: First Round winners face each other.
-- Third Round: Eight MLS clubs enter to play eight winners from the Second Round."

(Having said that, I think that my pairings will be close to the actual. And I hope that the "blind draw" will be kinder to the Bucks than last year, which set up a matchup of the USL-2 and PDL champions.)

Good breakdown Steve.

Draw is sometime today, although not publicized by the USSF. Cross your fingers not only for a favorable draw, but also for a home game...

If we are put in the 'Midwest' bracket, would it not make more sense to match the Riverhounds up with your Bucks and keep Rochester in the East?

Well, somebody will have to move between regions.

I posted the number of teams by region on the "US Open Cup" forum here: http://www.usldiscussions.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=000402

What is noticable at the start, is that there are only two pro teams in the West. So there may be a lot of team movement before the "blind draw" is made.

http://www.buckssoccer.com/home/251971.html

Open Cup game is at home against the Cleveland City Stars of USL-2, Tuesday, June 10 at 7:30, at Ultimate Soccer Arenas.

All pairings, according to the USL
http://www.uslsoccer.com/home/252103.html

(The USSoccer site is down right now.)

Brooklyn Knights (PDL) at Carolina RailHawks (USL-1)
NY Pancyprian Freedom (USASA) at Real Maryland Monarchs (USL-2)
Fredericksburg Gunners (PDL) at Richmond Kickers (USL-2)
Boston Olympiakos (USASA) at Western Mass Pioneers (USL-2)
Pittsburgh Riverhounds (USL-2) at AAC Eagles (USASA)
Cleveland City Stars (USL-2) at Michigan Bucks (PDL)
St. Louis Lions (PDL) at Minnesota Thunder (USL-1)
RWB Adria (USASA) at Rochester Rhinos (USL-1)
Atlanta Silverbacks (USL-1) at Austin Aztex (PDL)
ASC New Stars (USASA) at Charleston Battery (USL-1)
Clearwater Galactics (USASA) at Charlotte Eagles (USL-2)
Bradenton Academics (PDL) at Miami FC Blues (USL-1)
Seattle Sounders (USL-1) at Arizona Sahuaros (USASA)
Yakima Reds (PDL) at Harrisburg City Islanders (USL-2)
Crystal Palace Baltimore (USL-2) at Los Angeles Legends (PDL)
Hollywood United (USASA) at Portland Timbers (USL-1)


Well, I see that my pairings prediction was mostly right. Pittsburgh and Rochester moved to the "midwest" region, but I thought that Roch would be paired with Mich. (And the St.L. versus Minn pairing was almost a no-brainer.)

So, Brent, tell us about the Cleveland City Stars....

Thanks, Steve. The Stars are 3-1-2 for third place in the USL-2, with two wins over Pittsburgh aand one over Real Maryland. They were undefeated over their first four matches, before falling to Real Maryland. They play at Bermuda, Western Mass, and Real Maryland (again?) before playing the Bucks. So the Open Cup contest would be their fourth straight road game.

And as the article says, the second straight tough draw for the Bucks. The ping-pong balls aren't falling our way.

Well I think the bucks can take them. We beat up a lot of pdl teams and they are only one level up. but i am also predicting the usa will beat engalnd 5-0.

Wow 5-0 eh Craig? I'm gona give it a 2-1 win to England actually...Americans are playing well but I just think England is playing well so far, I also have watched the first 30 minutes.

And ya I think the Bucks can totally take City if they play their best, they kick *** in PDL lets show it in USL 2!

The Bucks would host the St. Louis Lions in the second round of the Open Cup, if they both advance.

http://www.ussoccer.com/articles/viewArticle.jsp_6619141.html

Potential Matchup; Venue; City/State; Time

Midwest June 24

Cleveland City Stars (USL2) / Michigan Bucks at Minnesota Thunder (USL1); National Sports Center; Blaine, Minn.; 7:05 p.m.

St. Louis Lions (PDL) at Michigan Bucks; Ultimate Soccer Arena; Pontiac, Mich.; 7:30 p.m.

Cleveland City Stars at St. Louis Lions; Tony Glavin Soccer Complex; Cottleville, Mo.; 5:00 p.m

I hope to have a surprise for all of you tomorrow!

oye vey! what will that be?

There is a potential long two-game road trip of June 24 at Minnestota and June 25 at Chicago Fire Premier. Either they keep the two-gamer, bussing out to Blaine, stay overnight, then catch Chi-town on their trip back (and maybe billing USSoccer for the whole package), or move the Chicago game up. Both teams currently have no games listed between the 11th and 19.

So the weekend of 14-15 would make an interesting impromptu road trip for the supporters. (Unfortunately, the MLS Fire are on the road that weekend, if you had wanted to make it a double-header. The White Sox are at home; the Cubs and AFL Rush aren't.)

I'm already going to be in Chi-town that weekend.

The likelihood is that if the Bucks advance to the next round of the Open Cup, the PDL match will be rescheduled.

I dug up some info on this lovely referee we got tonight. His name is Mike Sharrah, and he's local (from the Lansing area). He only does Michigan-based games, like when the 3 PDL teams in the state host, college games, and a couple of W-League games. This is his second Bucks game this year; the other one was at West Michigan on May 21. Looking at the match report, that one was called somewhat fairly, actually giving the Bucks the advantage in fouls over the Edge. So I don't really know what happened in this one, looks to me he should hate Ohio as much as the rest of us.

Interesting to find that NO PDL team was able to advance out of the first round last night...tough night for them, although the Hollywood United (USASA) pulled a huge upset over Portland winning 3-2...only real upset of the night though...unless you want to count Cleveland beating the Bucks as an upset Cause I think it was, Bucks should have won that game.

I totally agree with you, Marc. Usually you see a couple of PDL teams moving on after the first round (the Bucks included). They played well enough to win that game. I was talking to the guy who runs the USOpenCup.com site and I told him that if the Bucks couldn't have won their game last night, there was no way any other PDL team could've done it.

Well sometimes when there are upsets people blame the ref so he might have wanted to avoid that. It happens a lot in soccer and even other sports. Well that means hollywood united won the 10,000 from the am division.

another thing that pisses me off is that the city stars guys did that gay celebration in front of us. hell even chad barrett had a better one. I guess i just feel that if they really cared about their fans they would have celebrated with the ones that made the trip up.

Ya I was thinking about that, with the local ref he probably didn't want to make it look like he was calling the game for the Bucks and have a Michigan Ref send a Michigan team through...I'm sure he was trying to call the game for Cleveland so he wouldn't be blamed.

And ya City Stars are jerks, since when is it bad to cheer on your own team?? And where the hell was their Green Army? Ya sorry we actually enjoy supporting our team....jerks..

Hold on a second. The first round isn't quite over yet. The game between Real Maryland and the New York Pancyprian Freedoms (who, by the way, have won this tourney 3 times - before MLS, of course) was rained out last night, and will be played on Friday. So don't let the celebs cash in just yet. Besides, they have enough money to go around.