SANDY, Utah (Thursday, July 2, 2015) – Real Salt Lake today confirmed a quintet of dates on domestic and international fronts for its Summer/Fall schedule, hosting the 2015 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinal against MLS rival LA Galaxy on July 14, while also solidifying its Fall 2015/16 CONCACAF Champions League slate, facing Guatemalan power Municipal and Salvadoran debutant Santa Tecla FC the four-game group stage.
LAMAR HUNT U.S. OPEN CUP QUARTERFINAL
By virtue of Wednesday night’s 2-0 home victory over Portland Timbers FC in Open Cup play, as well as the Galaxy’s 1-0 road win at San Jose, RSL will host LA Galaxy in the 102-year old tourney’s Quarterfinal stage on Tuesday, July 14, with an 8:00 p.m. MT kickoff at Rio Tinto Stadium. RSL and the Galaxy – co-owner’s of current five-year streaks of 15 wins and 50+ points – are nearly perennial MLS Cup Playoff rivals, meeting in MLS Cup 2009, the 2011 Western Conference Finals and the 2013 and 2014 West Semifinals, but have never before competed in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
Tickets for the Tuesday, July 14 match will go on sale this Monday, July 6, at 10 a.m. MT on RealSaltLake.com, with current RSL season ticket holders having a priority window to purchase their seats to see Robbie Keane, Omar Gonzalez, Steven Gerrard and the entire Bruce Arena-led LA Galaxy side prior to all seats being released for general public sale.
2015/16 CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUP STAGE
RSL – advancing to the continental championship for the third time in six years – heads to Guatemala on Tuesday, August 4 to face Municipal, between regular-season road games on opposite sides of North America, at D.C. United on Sat., August 1 and then in Vancouver, B.C., Canada a week later on Sat., August 8. The Claret-and-Cobalt then travels to El Salvador to face Santa Tecla FC on Tuesday, September 15 directly from another critical Western Conference road game in Houston on Sat., Sept. 12.
Head Coach Jeff Cassar’s team wraps up group play with back-to-back Rio Tinto Stadium games on Thursday, September 24 against Santa Tecla (CONCACAF Game A) and Tuesday, October 20 against Municipal (CONCACAF Game B) in games included in the club’s 2015 season ticket package. All 2015/16 CCL games will be televised on Fox Sports 1 or 2 in the U.S. Each of the eight Group winners will advance to the Knockout Round, which features a home-and-away aggregate goal series starting in March of 2016.
REAL SALT LAKE’S ALL-TIME OPEN CUP HISTORY
RSL made its deepest run in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup back in 2013, winning a series of coin flips and advancing to host the 100th Final in tourney history, dropping an 0-1 decision at home to D.C. United, missing out on a CONCACAF Champions League berth. Later that season, RSL lost a penalty-kick shootout in MLS Cup 2013, becoming the only team out of 11 all-time to have advanced to both the USOC and MLS Cup Finals, but winning neither.
Dating back to 1914, the U.S. Open Cup is the oldest cup competition in United States soccer and is among the oldest in the world. Open to all affiliated amateur and professional teams in the United States, the annual U.S. Open Cup is a 100-plus-year-old single-elimination tournament. In a nutshell, the U.S. Open Cup is very similar to domestic cup competitions popular throughout Europe, South America and the rest of the world. Cup competitions, which usually run concurrent with a country’s league season, are open in the early stages to any club that qualifies, giving local amateur teams a chance to compete against the best teams a country has to offer.
In 1999, the U.S. Open Cup was renamed the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup to honor the long-time soccer supporter and pioneer. Hunt, who died in 2006, was one of the sport’s first major ownership figures in the United States and is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. His family continues to operate FC Dallas in Major League Soccer.
The winning team of the U.S. Open Cup has its name engraved on the Dewar Challenge Trophy, which has been permanently retired and remains at U.S. Soccer House in Chicago. At present, Seattle Sounders FC are the reigning Open Cup champion after defeating the Philadelphia Union to claim the 2014 title - the Sounders’ fourth in the last six years.
In leagues like the English Premier League, Serie A in Italy and the Bundesliga in Germany, cup competitions are prestigious tournaments waged between countries’ strongest teams such as Manchester United, AC Milan and Bayern Munich, and smaller teams like the amateur French side Calais that made it to the finals of the 2000 Coupe de France only to fall to defending champions Nantes on an injury time penalty kick. Watford F.C. in England, was another small-time club that hit it big in 1984 by making it all the way to the F.A. Cup Final. Unfashionable Chesterfield of the Second Division (the third flight in England) advanced to the semifinals of the 1997 F.A. Cup in England before finally losing. And the U.S. has seen its share of Cinderella runs, the most recent of which saw amateur side Cal FC advance past two professional clubs (Division III USL Pro side Wilmington Hammerheads and Division I MLS team Portland Timbers) on its march to the Round of 16 in 2012.
The winner of each country’s domestic cup competition, in addition to taking home the prize money, is automatically placed into a tournament to compete against neighboring countries’ cup winners.
CLARET-AND-COBALT IN THE CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
RSL joins LA Galaxy, Seattle Sounders, Vancouver Whitecaps FC and D.C. United as the five MLS teams each adding four midweek matches to their collective league slates in the final 10 weeks of the 2015 season, with the 2015/16 CONCACAF Champions League Group Stage kicking off the week after the 2015 MLS All-Star Game and the conclusion of July’s Gold Cup tourney, as well as the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinal round, which also takes place in a busy July.
Real Salt Lake earned its way into the 2015-2016 Champions League tournament with its regular season finish in the 2014 MLS regular season. RSL held a 15-8-11 record (56 points) to earn the third seed in the Western Conference. The two teams that finished ahead of Real Salt Lake in the standings – the LA Galaxy and Seattle Sounders FC – both qualified by winning MLS Cup and the Supporters’ Shield, respectively, and Real Salt Lake was the next in line for a berth.
This is Real Salt Lake’s third entry into the tournament. In 2010-2011, RSL reached the tournament final, losing to Monterrey from Mexico. It was the first time an MLS club had reached the final under the tournament’s current format. The Montreal Impact matched that feat this year, but also lost in the final. In the 2012-2013 tournament, RSL failed to get out of the Group Stage, needing only a goal in the final match against Costa Rican side Herediano, but settling for a 0-0 draw that eliminated the club from knockout contention.
