How is it possible that my club with a World Cup Champion in Youri Djorkaeff, a three time US Open Cup Champion with the Chicago Fire in Ante Razov & coming back to Metro winning the US Open Cup last year with the Kansas City Wizards in Tony Meola that none of these three men were in the starting eleven. Why in the hell do these three important men get spared an important US Open Cup match against a tough Rochester Rhinos side that is always looking to add another notch to their boots when they take out an MLS side in the hunt for a US Open Cup title.
As much as Zach Wells has made major improvements at the beginning of the 2005 MLS Metro season he hasn’t played a single minute in the last three matches and now all of a sudden he is back in the nets for the US Open Cup? This is simply outrageous and a move that should never have happened. The only time this ever worked was in the 2000 US Open Cup when Mike Ammann played in the MLS season while Tim Howard who we all know was an up & coming keeper played in the US Open Cup matches. The difference between Howard then and Wells now is that Timmy was already match tested for two seasons and Wells was thrown to the wolves when Jonny Walker was recovering from a torn rotator cuff. If Meola became the new starting keeper for Metro then he should have been in the nets for them against Rochester.
Very angry and very disappointed that Head Coach Bob Bradley didn’t listen nor heed the message from current President & GM Alexi Lalas that this match against the Rhinos in the US Open Cup is a win that he wanted. As we the supporters wanted as well and without the talented Frenchmen in the midfield there was no joy & no victory on the road in Rochester on Wednesday, August 3rd. There was a loss that should never have happened. Damned the road match to open Pizza Hut Park on Saturday, August 6th against FC Dallas & damn the MLS regular season as well. There is always another match after they play in Frisco, Texas, but there won’t be another match in the US Open Cup till 2006. For the second straight season the Metro are now one & done. In the 1999 cup they lost in the 2nd round to the defunct Staten Island Vipers but in the 2000 season they went all the way to the Semi-Finals. In 2001 they lost to the Charleston Battery, but went as far as the Quarterfinals in 2002. This is the first time that Metro in back to back seasons failed to advance past the earlier rounds.
Here is a man in Bob Bradley who said he takes the US Open Cup seriously, won two championships with Chicago and led the Metro to the Final match in 2003. Now all of a sudden he decides not to field his best starting eleven and gets taken out by one of the best sides in the USL-1st Division. This is absolutely a travesty to the supporters of the Metro who want to badly to celebrate a championship they can care less if it’s in MLS or the US Open Cup, as long as it’s a cup we are going to be happy. If Djorkaeff, Meola & Razov and when Amado Guevara returns from his injury on August 6th and finds a way to leap frog the Eastern Conference Standings in MLS that’s just fine, but it still pains and disgusts me that Bradley wouldn’t allow them to fight in the US Open Cup against a side that never takes this cup lightly at all. They did defeat the Colorado Rapids in 1999 as the first A-League side to defeat an MLS side in the US Open Cup final.
