LAFC, Sporting KC square off in U.S. Open Cup Final

Silverware is up for grabs on Wednesday night when four-time Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup champions Sporting Kansas City travel to Los Angeles to battle first-time finalists LAFC at BMO Stadium.

Despite the 95-team tournament only involving eight of 29 MLS teams this season, two top-division teams rose to the top, earning their shot at a trophy. Sporting Kansas City beat Union Omaha, FC Tulsa, FC Dallas, and Indy Eleven to reach the final while LAFC dispatched Las Vegas Lights, Loudoun United FC, New Mexico United, and Seattle Sounders.

Since that win over Sounders, LAFC have suffered through their biggest slump of the season garnering just two points across their previous five games entering Wednesday’s match. On the contrary, Sporting KC have struggled most of the season but following Leagues Cup, Peter Vermes’ squad have picked up seven points from their last five matches. 

“Our season so far is not what we expected before. We have the chance to turn the season a little bit around,” SKC midfielder Erik Thommy. “We are already in the Champions League next season. That is a good step for us, a good thing. The next step for us would be to get a trophy home, and like I said, to turn the season around.”

LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo — who ironically coached Thommy for six months while an assistant at VfB Stuttgart in Germany — is less worried about form, choosing to heavily rotate and rest his starters at the weekend in Dallas which Vermes did to a much lesser extent in SKC’s Saturday game against Minnesota. 

Last season, Cherundolo employed a similar strategy ahead of the 2023 Concacaf Champions League Final, resting his team in the prior USOC match vs LA Galaxy, before suffering double trouble by losing El Trafico and getting battered in CCL by Club León. Nonetheless, Cherundolo is sticking to his principles.

Those principles have seen LAFC reach four major finals (five including Campeones Cup) during his three-year tenure but have also seen the Black and Gold lose the last three (Campeones Cup makes four) — most recently exactly a month ago in the Leagues Cup Final in Columbus.

“The group right now is hungry,” LAFC defender Aaron Long shared. “To taste these finals a couple of times in a row now, and to get this close, I’ll just leave it as we’re a very hungry group. We know what’s at stake. We know what’s on the line. We know what it feels like to win. We know what it feels like to lose. We really like one of those so we’re going to give it everything on the day.”

Interestingly, since LAFC lifted the 2022 MLS Cup, every major trophy in American club soccer has been claimed by a possession-dominant team — a trend SKC will hope to continue against the transitional Black and Gold tactics en route to a record 5th USOC title in the modern post-MLS era, of which current SKC head coach Peter Vermes has won three (2012, 2015, 2017).

“It would be fantastic for the organization to not only be in that place of where we’ve won five but also in the place where we win a trophy this year,” Vermes said. “That would be tremendous. It would be great for the club.”

Whether a fifth for SKC or a first for LAFC, history will be made at BMO Stadium on Wednesday night when confetti falls to crown the 2024 U.S. Open Cup champion.