The league has nine clubs now that Tampa and Baltimore have jumped ship and they could look to add a tenth with the possibility of Rochester leaving the USL after 2010.

Currently there are only 5 teams remaining from last year’s USL-1 season.  Austin, Cleveland, Portland, Puerto Rico and Rochester, with the expansion team of  New York bringing the league to 6. Some may say what about Charleston? Well, they are headed to the USL-2 in the form of a self-relegation. Some folks are saying Cleveland could easily do the same.

Let’s not forget that after this next season for the USL they will stand to lose Portland. That bring their lovely total down to just four for the 2011 season unless they get some expansion sites up in a hurry before then.

The USL does looked doomed here but will this NASL really work? Vancouver and Montreal are headed MLS’s way in the near future but this little league could be fine if the chips keep falling for the USL. But the thing that worries people like me is how in the world will they get all their crap together before the start of the season next year? At the very least they could have a website up now that they have a name but since http://www.nasl.com is already taken they could be in trouble on that front.

Things do look good for the TOA, or now rather the NASL, which is still a stupid name in my mind to go with.

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Wynada On His MLS Time

Link

He still regrets coming back to MLS when it started up. I respect Wynalda but its a douche bag kind of thing to say about a league that probably did him more good than anything else. I’d be willing to be we would have never see him in broadcasting had it not been for MLS.

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Missed PK and What It Means For Donovan

Link

An excellent point that I thought about last night when I saw Landon Donovan blast his PK try over the bar and into the 40th row. How will that missed PK affect his potential to go back to Europe this winter? Hell the bigger picture that I am concerned about here is how will it affect him going into next year’s World Cup. We need Donovan to be the dominate player he was in the summer and not the LandyCakes we’ve seen in the past and during that PK try.

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Duka Ready For MLS

Link

So young Dilly Duka didn’t get a contract in Europe like some had figured so he will stay with MLS and get selected in January’s SuperDraft. The kid sounds excited though about coming to MLS and I think he has a great shot to do something special here for a couple years before heading to Europe.

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More Somerville Talk For Revs

Link

The Revs have been “talking” about building a stadium in Somerville for a couple years now. Will they finally do it is the question. They definitely need to that is for sure. We know they need to get out of the NFL stadium that they are in right now because they cannot draw well in there at all.

Anyways, Cuban defector Osvaldo Alonso, the USL1 rookie of the year at Charleston last season, signed to a multiyear contract. The Battery and Sounders agreed to terms today for Seattle to acquire his rights from the Battery.

Alonso is a 23-year-old central midfielder who made 17 national team appearances before defecting in June 2007.

Not a bad signing for Seattle. I recall seeing some of Alonso last year in the US Open Cup. While I thought Seattle was a little full in the midfield, this certainly doesn’t hurt their depth. I thought Alonso looked pretty MLS-ready the last time I watched him play.

This was probably one of the more entertaining US Open Cup finals that I’ve seen in the past couple years. Maybe it was because of the DC fans making RFK a fortress or maybe it was because you had a USL club in the final for the first time in a few years.

With the win, DC becomes the first MLS club to qualify for the 2009/10 edition of the CONCACAF Champions League.

Below is some highlights of the game as well as some photos of DC and the trophy.

Here is a little mojo to get you Black-and-Red fans in the mood for tonight’s US Open Cup final in RFK Stadium. I will have more in a bit on this game but I wanted to start out with this video that a reader emailed in this morning!

DC United plays host to New England first at 7:30pm ET at RFK Stadium and will only be broadcast via two radio streams (available at www.USOpenCup.com).

The Seattle Sounders vs Charleston Battery game also kicks off at 7:30pm and will be shown on USLLive.com.

More from these games later on tonight or early tomorrow morning! Enjoy!

The only MLS side that could host is DC, that is if D.C. United and Charleston advance. In that case, the game would be Sept. 3 at RFK Stadium (7:30 ET). Otherwise…..

DCU at Seattle, Sept. 3, 11 p.m. ET.

New England at Seattle, Sept. 15, 10 p.m.

New England at Charleston, Sept. 22, 7 p.m. ET.

This is all pretty interesting. The fact that a USL club could be hosting the title game is pretty big for both Charleston and Seattle. You know Seattle is hoping to make their mark on this tournament and head to the CONCACAF Champions League next year with this win. Yeah that will also be their first year in MLS so even bigger if they do.

Same could be said for Charleston, except they won’t be getting the “promotion” to MLS anytime soon, but a US Open Cup win never looks bad no matter what division you are in.

Do you all think this will make it tougher on the MLS sides (DC or New England) to win if they are playing in Seattle or Charleston? I think it adds some more interest the tournament for sure.

Lately, Fox Soccer Channel is scheduled to show the final live.

AND, the semifinals are next week (more coverage then too):

New England at DCU and Seattle at Charleston.

Three of the four games went into extra time, two of the games were decided on penalty kicks. Great night of soccer all around.

The results set up an all MLS semifinal and an all USL1 semifinal. No matter what, each division will get a club in the final game later this summer.

New England 1 – 1 Crystal Palace Baltimore (NE wins 5-3 on PKs):

• New England had a lot of problems with the USL2 side, but put them away when it counted most in PKs.
• The Revs didn’t throw out all reserves in this one, you can tell Steve Nicol wants to repeat as Open Cup champion this year. But main keeper Matt Reis was on the bench for this one.
• Give a lot of credit to Palace too, they hung in there for the full 90 plus two extra frames. That’s a lot of gas on any team, especially one that isn’t as deep as a MLS club.
• Backup keeper Doug Warren came up big with the save in the forth round of PKs to win the game for the defending champs.

DC United 2 – 1 Chicago Fire (overtime)

• Largely seen as the ugliest game of the night by most people’s standards. Some said DC was lucky to win and others said Chicago lost it just like Blano did late in the game.
• Speaking of Blanco, there is some talk that he went crazy after the game or just after his ejection from the contest. Of course MLS Rumors is trying to get all over that one, head there if you really care about hearing what all Blanco did.
• DC beats the Fire for the first time in any elimination or knockout competition.
• Give the Black-and-Red a lot of credit for coming back and scoring late in this one to tie things up.
• Jamie Moreno was easily the man of the match, setting up both goals for DC.

Charleston Battery 3 – 1 FC Dallas

• A nasty night in Frisco, the rain interrupted this game for a little while which seemed to give the visitors all they needed to win.
• The rain caused a delay of over an hour, not many fans stuck around to see the finish. Probably a good thing they didn’t because it was nasty.
• Dallas largely held the possession but defensive miscues caused each Battery goal.
• A goal in stoppage time from each club. By then the Dallas goal was just too little too late.
• Defnintely one of the worst performances from Dallas this year. Not discrediting anything Charleston did but Schellas Hyndman fielded a normal starting XI for this one and got nothing but a disasterous result.

Seattle Sounders 0 – 0 Kansas City Wizards (Seattle wins 6-5 in PKs)

• I got to watch a lot of this one last night. Probably one of the more entertaining games of the night. Loads of end to end action from each club.
• Seattle easily put the peddle to the medal in this one against the Wizards. They probably could have won it in normal time had some shots not hit the post.
• Seattle has still yet to give up a goal in regular time in this competition. That is amazing this late in the tournament.
• KC had a couple of chances but you could tell late that their legs were road tired and they had little left in the tank.
• Two big saves by Seattle keeper Chris Eylander in the penalty round. Easily the man of the match right there.

Below are the times and broadcast information for each game.

All Times Eastern

U.S. Open Cup Quarterfinals

Crystal Palace Baltimore (USL-2) at New England Revolution (MLS)
Veterans Stadium, Willow Brook Park; New Britain, Conn. – 7:00 PM
Broadcast: Online Radio (New England)

Chicago Fire (MLS) at DC United (MLS)
Maryland SoccerPlex; Boyds, Md. – 7:30 PM
Broadcast: Spanish & English radio (DC United)

Charleston Battery (USL-1) at FC Dallas (MLS)
Pizza Hut Park; Frisco, Texas – 8:30 PM
Broadcast: Video (FC Dallas) Radio (no webcast): REAL 1340AM WQSC (Charleston)

Kansas City Wizards (MLS) at Seattle Sounders (USL-1)
Qwest Field; Seattle, Wash. – 10:00 PM
Broadcast: Video

Like I said, all the matches have some interesting aspects behind them. New England is going up against the biggest underdog in recent Open Cup history. Could a USL2 club really make it through against the defending Cup champions? I think we will get at least one upset tonight in terms of a MLS club going down; look for Seattle to be that club. I am eager to see the outcome of the Charleston/Dallas match, this is the third straight year these two clubs have met in this competition. And as always, a DC-Chicago game is going to be interesting.

Stay tuned for results later on tonight!