It’s back to the USL Cup this week for Round 3. Between Saturday and next Wednesday there will be 20 games in the competition. That means 2 teams are on a bye; those are The™ Miami FC and Louisville City. Miami has already played 3 games in the Cup; Louisville will play its Round 3 game June 20th. Sporting JAX has also played 3 games and so will finish its group games tomorrow. Against the Tampa Bay Rowdies, that is, which almost certainly means they will be eliminated along with potentially a few others.
The most important part
The Legion has played both its road games in the Cup and so has home field advantage the rest of the way. The Three Sparks play Corpus Christi FC on Tuesday and we will preview that game next week. The final game will be against FC Tulsa July 11th.
Here’s how things stand. First off, as we have previously noted, a wild card spot will be harder to get this time since there is only one available. Focus therefore has to be on winning the group. Currently San Antonio FC leads with 5 points, followed by Tulsa on 4 and the Legion and Corpus Christi on 3 each. The Legion maxes out at 9 points. As those would be taken from Corpus Christi and Tulsa, that leaves only San Antonio to be concerned about. San Antonio can get to 11 points and has the tiebreaker over the Legion due to the shootout win (I think). That means they have to drop 3 of the 6 points available. That can happen either by a regular-time loss or two draws with at least one shootout loss. They play Tulsa away this weekend and the Chattanooga Red Wolves in Round 4. It’s not hard to figure out what has to happen.
Best of the rest
Since the Legion gets a much-needed rest over the weekend, viewing choices are wide open. Here are our recommendations:
FC Tulsa v. San Antonio FC (Saturday, 7:30pm, ESPN+)
No surprise here. This is the key to it all. Obviously, Legion fans need to be rooting for Tulsa, even though they are a fake Magic City. Their 4 points in the Cup are from a 1-1 shootout loss with One Knoxville and 1-0 win over Corpus Christi. Not overly impressive. San Antonio’s win was 1-0 over One Knoxville. Also not that impressive. San Antonio leads the Championship Western Conference; Tulsa is 5 points back in 3rd but has 2 games in hand and has been playing pretty well lately and are #2 in our Power Rankings. San Antonio were off last weekend after a crazy 4-4 draw with Sporting JAX. This will also be the 3rd meeting already this season: San Antonio won 2-0 in the opening week and Tulsa won 2-1 in the Open Cup in April.
Charleston Battery v. Pittsburgh Riverhounds (Saturday, 6:00pm, ESPN+)
This one in Group 6 could be interesting. The Battery tops the group with a perfect record and are 2 points better than the Riverhounds. In league play both teams have been rather unpredictable and have identical records. Both are also coming off solid 2-0 wins last week, over Detroit and Miami respectively. All of which is to say, this one should be close.
Sacramento Republic v. Monterey Bay FC (Saturday, 10:00pm, CBS Sports Golazo Network)
SacRep is coming off 2 tough losses in the Championship, Monterey Bay has won 2 straight, ending its winless season with a bang. Both are below the playoff line in the Western Conference. Sacramento is perfect in the Cup, whereas Monterey Bay has just 2 points. Each team has something to prove here and it will be a very interesting nightcap.
Brooklyn FC v. Portland Hearts of Pine (Sunday, 2:00pm, ESPN+)
Group 5 is the tightest in the entire competition, with only 2 points separating top from bottom. It is also the only group currently led by a League One team. That team is Portland. They are on short rest though as they played Wednesday evening in Texas and gave up 2 stoppage time goals to hand Corpus Christi its first league win ever. They are now 9th and just below the playoff line. Brooklyn is struggling in the Championship but trails Portland (and Hartford Athletic, who are 2nd on tiebreakers) by just a point. A lot on the line here.
Legion in the Lower Leagues
Legion WFC have been resting since May 27th; as a result, their lead in the South Central division has been cut to a still very healthy 5 points. All teams in the division have played 4 games now. This weekend they head to Swarm FC again (Saturday, 2:30pm, SportsEngine). There are 5 teams in the group but each team has 10 games so must play one team away twice and one team at home twice (which will be the Chattanooga Red Wolves). The previous result was a 1-0 Legion win. An interesting sidebar: Ramiz Hamouda is at the USMNT U-19 training camp. The only other player in camp not playing for MLS or in Europe is Braden Dunham who is currently at Furman University and plays club ball for Swarm. And then…
4 hours later Legion FC 2 plays at the same field for a double-header. The 2s aren’t doing anywhere near as well, with just 2 points from 3 games, most recently a 2-2 draw with Montgomery United this past Wednesday. That leaves them bottom of the South Central division after 3 games.
