Open Cup Tomorrow

The Rapids are in Minnesota tomorrow night for the U.S. Open Cup 4th Round.  The good news is that the game will be on ESPN+ with no blackouts.  The bad news is that this is the Rapids in the USOC, so we kind of know how this is going to go.  Robin Fraser is sating all the right things about taking it seriously, but he said that about the CCL.  And Hudson said that about the Open Cup (not sure Casey said it about the Open Cup in 2019), and before that Pablo said it, and before that Smith.  Despite all that, we've rarely acted like we're taking it seriously, losing to teams like New Mexico, Atlanta (pre-MLS), Nashville (pre-MLS), and Orlando (also pre-MLS) in the past.  Oh, and Minnesota (pre-MLS).  You have to go back to 2006 to find the last time we beat a MLS team in the tournament.

So, yeah, I don't have high hopes for tomorrow.  To be honest though, this would be a year to blow it off.  Our upcoming schedule is tough, we're in a bit of a hole, and out injury report is not good.  I expect to see guys like Yapi and Anderson get significant minutes tomorrow.  One player we won't see is Zardes, who's last appearance for the Crew was in their 3rd round loss which means he's cup-tied and can't appear for us.

I never make a score prediction on the USOC, since we really don't know what kind of lineup we're going to see, but I will go on record in predicting a loss.