The United States’ longest-running soccer competition won’t include its top professional teams in 2024.
Major League Soccer is pulling its top rosters from next year’s U.S. Open Cup and will replace them with MLS Next Pro player development teams.
MLS announced the decision Friday night and said it was made by its board of governors. MLS said the change will provide opportunities for developing players and reduce schedule congestion for the first-team roster, freeing up to six midweek match dates.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber hinted that a change was possible when he spoke to media Dec. 8, a day before the MLS Cup final.
“If we’re going to have our professional teams competing in a tournament that is the oldest tournament of its type anywhere in the country, we all need to embrace it, from our federation to our respective leagues, and give it the profile and give it the support that it needs,” he said. “If we can’t do that, then we all should meet together and decide that there needs to be a new plan.”
This means that Minnesota United will not participate in the tournament next year but that developmental club MNUFC2 will instead. The Loons reached the final of the 2019 U.S. Open Cup, losing at Atlanta 2-1.
MLS teams have won all but one U.S. Open Cup since the league began in 1996, but the competition allowed for teams from all levels of soccer to potentially compete against — and beat — some of the best in the country. In 2022, when the U.S. Open Cup returned after a two-year break for COVID-19, the Loons lost in the round of 16 at home to Union Omaha, a USL League One club.
In 2005, the Minnesota Thunder — then a USL First Division team — beat two MLS teams to reach the U.S. Open Cup semifinals, where they lost to the LA Galaxy. The year before, the Thunder beat the Galaxy in a U.S. Open Cup match at the Metrodome.
Houston beat Inter Miami this year in the U.S. Open Cup final, earning a berth next year in the CONCACAF Champions League. Miami star Lionel Messi was injured and missed the match.