Sporting KC’s first team won’t play in U.S. Open Cup. And that’s not the strangest part
The annual Lamar Hunt U.S Open Cup soccer tournament kicks off this weekend.
But last year’s finalists — Sporting Kansas City and Los Angeles FC — won’t be participating. And that’s just one of several oddities lurking in this year’s format.
Sporting KC isn’t opting out. The club’s second team, Sporting KC II, is entered in the single-elimination knockout competition. Here’s the reason.
Why no U.S. Open Cup for Sporting KC’s first team
Sporting KC’s long-held tradition of taking the Open Cup seriously takes a bit of a backseat this year.
But the decision about whether to compete as usual wasn’t Sporting KC’s to make.
By reaching the Open Cup Finals last year, Sporting KC also qualified for the Concacaf Champions Cup. The team’s run in the latter tourney ended last month, when Sporting was knocked out by Inter Miami.
MLS rules governing participation in cup competitions prohibit clubs from entering their first team in both tournaments — CCL and Open Cup — because the two tourneys’ calendars overlap significantly.
“Would we have liked to be in the Open Cup with the first team? Absolutely,” Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes said. “But the fact that we’re not and the second team and those guys are getting that chance to play in it, I think it’s really good for them to be able to do it from an experience perspective.”
Sporting KC II vs. Des Moines Menace ... and Feilhaber
So Sporting KC II, which competes in the third MLS Next Pro league division, will play the Des Moines Menace.
And here’s another place where things get quirky.
The Menace roster includes former Sporting KC star (and Sporting Legend) Benny Feilhaber — who actually coached Sporting KC II last season. The match is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Swope Soccer Village (Children’s Mercy Victory Field).
Feilhaber’s name is forever etched in the North Facade of Children’s Mercy Park.
Weird, right?
“I don’t think weird is the word I’d use to describe it,” Feilhaber told The Star. “I won’t feel awkward in any way. I’ll be able to be competitive, just like a normal game.”
Feilhaber helped lead Sporting KC to U.S. Open Cup titles in 2015 and 2017.
“It’ll be interesting, for sure,” he said, “but in a good way.”
Feilhaber isn’t the only former Sporting KC player on Des Moines’ Wednesday roster. Felipe Hernandez, whose contract was terminated by Major League Soccer last September for a second violation of the league’s gambling policies, is also slated to play in Kansas City.
Hernandez made eight appearances for Sporting KC in the Open Cup, scoring four goals and adding an assist.
Still more names will be recognizable to ardent fans. The MLS Season Pass studio host crew of Sacha Klejistan, Dax McCarty, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Oswaldo Alonso is also on the Des Moines roster.
Klejistan and Wright-Phillips suited up for the New York Red Bulls together against Feilhaber and Sporting KC in the 2017 Open Cup final, which Sporting won 2-1. Alonso played for the Seattle Sounders in the 2012 Open Cup final that Sporting won on penalty kicks.
Throw in players like Victor Ulloa, Matt Hedges, AJ DeLaGarza and Justin Meram and it’s apparent there’s a lot of experience on the Menace roster.
Meanwhile, the average age of players on Sporting KC II’s roster is under 20. That figure might tick north of the legal drinking age, depending on which/how many first-teamers Sporting KC loans down for the game (up to five).
Menace roster studded with (former) stars
So why does Des Moines’ roster include so many notable names? Let’s start with the fact that the U.S. Open Cup has always started early in the spring.
For teams like Des Moines, competing in USL League Two means a summer season with a roster consisting of out-of-season college players. The Menace roster is often built of guys from colleges across the country, making it difficult for them to compete in matches during the school year.
Last season, the Menace had players like Klejistan and even former Sporting KC stalwart (and Sporting Legend) Roger Espinoza suit up for games. The team even put its equipment manager on the roster at one point, just to fill out numbers.
With Feilhaber no longer in the SKC II job and looking for something to do, he called his buddy Sacha and asked if he was running it back with the Menace this season.
When Sacha answered “yes,” Feilhaber started playing general manager.
“I said, ‘If we do it, let’s actually set the roster up so that we can be competitive, so that it’s not just me and you and a bunch of random kids we’ve never played with before,’” Felihaber said.
The Menace team assembled for this year’s Open Cup includes some formidable players, though some have been retired for years. It’s natural to wonder what makes this opportunity so attractive to past standouts like Feilhaber.
“Any cup competition within soccer lends itself to some very interesting storylines,” Klejistan told The Star.
In France right now, a third-division semi-pro team has reached the semifinals of the club-cup competition. Same thing in Germany, with Duisburg.
“It creates these interesting matchups where you could have an amateur team or a really low, lower-division team playing against the giants of their country,” Klejistan said. “And once you step on the field, it’s 90 minutes.
“Anything goes, anything can happen. We’re all just excited to get all these guys together to try and make a little bit of a run.”
One more connection of note
There’s one more oddity to mention: Sporting KC II’s new head coach, Istvan Urbanyi, actually competed for the Menace during his playing career.
“That was 200 years ago anyway,” he said with a laugh on Friday.
Urbanyi hopes his squad, while young, can learn from the experience and environment this week.
“The most important thing for these young players is to experience different kinds of environments, different kinds of pressure and different actions on the field,” he said.
Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.
This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 1:56 PM.