USL News Release
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
TAMPA, Fla. – USL PRO’s Richmond Kickers continued their remarkable run in the 2011 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup with a 2-0 victory against Sporting Kansas City of MLS in the quarterfinals on Tuesday night at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. The defeat was the first for Kansas City at their outstanding new stadium since it opened last month. Richmond will travel to face the Chicago Fire of MLS in next month’s semifinals.
The Kickers are the first USL team since the Rochester Rhinos in 2009 to reach the Open Cup semifinals, and should they defeat the Fire would be the first side since the Charleston Battery in 2008 to reach the Open Cup Final. The Rhinos remain the last USL side to win the Open Cup (1999) and the only lower division team to pull off the feat since the formation of Major League Soccer in 1996.
While MLS sides such as the four-time champion Chicago Fire, two-time defending champion Seattle Sounders and fellow two-time champion D.C. United have taken home the silverware since the Rhinos’ victory, USL clubs have still been able to give MLS sides a run for their money when they have met in the tournament during the past dozen years.
Even this year, when Richmond was the only non-MLS side to reach the quarterfinals, clubs such as Rochester, Orlando City, F.C. New York and the Los Angeles Blues were only narrowly defeated, with Orlando, New York and Los Angeles all holding leads at one point in their respective third round matches against FC Dallas, the New York Red Bulls and Los Angeles Galaxy. While Major League Soccer remains the gold standard in U.S. Soccer, USL PRO teams continue to prove in this prestigious competition that on any given day they can compete with the best in the United States and Canada.
During the next several weeks, numerous USL PRO teams including Orlando City and Charleston will face off in exhibition matches against opponents from the English Premier League and other top international leagues. Supporting the entertaining and exciting product on the field generated by these teams, USL PRO provides best operated and most experienced domestic league platform beneath and in support of MLS.
Richmond will head out on the road again for its semifinal against the Chicago, which is to be played at Toyota Park on August 30 at 8:30 p.m. EDT. The Fire defeated Rochester 1-0 in the third round of this year’s competition before a 4-0 victory against the New York Red Bulls in Tuesday’s quarterfinal. The two teams have met once before in the Open Cup, the Fire took a 1-0 victory in the 2004 quarterfinals after the Kickers had defeated D.C. United in the previous round.
Richmond’s Shaka Bangura scored what proved to be the game-winning goal in the 66th minute Tuesday night while David Bulow added an insurance goal from the penalty spot eight minutes from the end to continue his outstanding run of form in the Open Cup this season. Bulow now has six goals in this year’s competition, and with his 14th career Open Cup goal also moved past former D.C. United standout Jaime Moreno and former USL standout Johnny Menyongar for the most Open Cup goals in the tournament’s modern era.
The game was the Kickers’ third in five days after a pair of games on Friday and Saturday against the Charlotte Eagles in USL PRO. It was also the second of those games to suffer a weather-delay, with Friday night’s game not finishing until 12:15 a.m.
On Tuesday night the teams were removed from the field in the 65th minute for what ended up being an 81-minute lightning delay. The delay didn’t seem to affect the Kickers, though, as they scored in the first minute after the resumption, Bulow’s cross finding Bangura for the finish.
The win puts the Kickers into the Open Cup semifinals for the first time since the club won the competition in 1995, when current coach Leigh Cowlishaw was a player for the side. Cowlishaw, in fact, assisted on the Kickers’ goal in that victory as the side drew 1-1 with the El Paso Patriots before winning 4-2 in a penalty shootout.
The Kickers’ victory on Tuesday was Cowlishaw’s fourth as a coach against MLS opposition in the Open Cup, while the club itself has notched five wins overall. This season’s victories against the Columbus Crew and Kansas City were the first earned on the road by the Kickers. Since its victory in the Open Cup in 1995 the Kickers had advanced to the quarterfinals on three other occasions (2001, 2004, 2007) and over the course of their history have defeated the Los Angeles Galaxy, D.C. United and the Colorado Rapids.
Since their formation in 1993, the Kickers have been a model USL franchise, winning three league championships but also becoming an integral part of the local community. In addition to their USL PRO side the Kickers also have a development academy that competes in the USL Super Y-League, with the club’s professional players often lending their expertise to the next generation of players coming through the Richmond area.