MLS to keep its teams out of U.S. Open Cup for first time

“This decision will provide emerging professional players with additional opportunities for meaningful competition,” MLS said in a statement. “The move also benefits the MLS regular season by reducing schedule congestion, freeing up to six midweek match dates.”

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The move comes ahead of a 2024 campaign in which all MLS teams will participate in a 34-game regular season and the Leagues Cup, an intra-league tournament that this past year grew to feature every club from MLS and Mexico’s Liga MX. A record 10 MLS teams will also participate in the Concacaf Champions Cup, a regional tournament that crowns the top club in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. And MLS recently capped the largest postseason in league history, with its playoff field growing to 18 teams and the reintroduction of best-of-three series.

MLS also must work around national team obligations — most notably, next summer’s Copa América. The United States will host the prestigious South American championship, which will feature six North American teams alongside the usual 10 participants from South America (including Brazil and World Cup champion Argentina).

The Open Cup typically features dozens of professional teams in a single-elimination tournament encompassing the full American soccer pyramid, from MLS to amateur circuits, in the U.S. version of England’s storied FA Cup. The tournament has been played every year since 1914, with the exception of the coronavirus-canceled 2020 and 2021 editions. The last non-MLS team to lift the trophy was the Rochester Raging Rhinos in 1999, and MLS clubs have won 25 of 26 Open Cup titles since the league was founded in 1996.

D.C. United has won the Open Cup three times, most recently in 2013. The Houston Dynamo, led by former United coach Ben Olsen, defeated Inter Miami to win the 2023 crown and earn the Concacaf Champions Cup berth that came with it.

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MLS Commissioner Don Garber hinted at the change during his state of the league remarks last week in Columbus — before the Columbus Crew defeated Los Angeles FC in the MLS Cup final — saying “there might be changes to our participation sometime in the future.”

“I believe 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 the support it needs,” Garber said. “If we can’t do that, then we should meet and decide that there needs to be a new plan.”

MLS’s three Canadian teams — CF Montréal, Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps — are still expected to participate in the Canadian Championship.

Launched in 2022, MLS Next Pro is a third-division circuit featuring reserve teams from every MLS club except for D.C. and Montréal. D.C., which last year sold its controlling stake in Loudoun United of the second-tier USL Championship, has been looking to launch an MLS Next Pro affiliate in Baltimore.

D.C. United selected former Seattle Sounders defender-midfielder Ethan Dobbelaere off waivers. The 21-year-old U.S. youth international logged 19 MLS matches (six starts) after signing with the Sounders as a homegrown player in 2020.