“Average Joes” take aim at pros
The best basketball player at the local community rec center will almost certainly never get a chance to go one-on-one against Steph Curry. There is no path for a local softball team to get a shot to play the Red Sox at Fenway Park.
Butwhatifyouweretold that, for the best amateur team in Colorado soccer, there’s a path to glory that might take it up against world-famous footballers? That a bunch of “average Joes” might make a deep run in a tournament that gives them a shot to step on the field against a global superstar like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marco Fabian or Wayne Rooney?
That is the magic of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, a single-elimination tournament open to any men’s soccer team in the United States, amateur or professional. The Open Cup is one of the oldest sporting competitions of any kind in the U.S., having begun in 1904.
For FC Denver, a group of amateur footballers from in and around the Denver area, a slew of wins over regional amateur teams has it going toe to toe with the pros starting Wednesday when it plays the seconddivision Colorado Switchbacks FC at Weidner Field. If FC Denver can get past the Switchbacks, it will be one step closer to the dream of playing against an MLS team in a 20,000-seat stadium.
“It’s been a whirlwind,” said the club’s general manager, Luke Elbin. “But we’ve come out exactly where we wanted to be.”
The road to the 2019 US Open Cup began for FC Denver in September 2018. FC Denver played three rounds against other local Colorado amateur teams; it won two of those games handily, but went to extra time and then penalty kicks against Harpos FC, squeaking through with a 3-2 PK victory. Harpos is probably regarded as Colorado’s “other” best amateur club, as the Boulder-based team qualified for the 2015 and 2016 US Open Cups.
The team then traveled to El Paso for a match against Southwest FC and returned there May 8 to play Midland-Odessa Sockers FC. That game that included a flight cancellation and a five-hour drive across Texas, getting the team to the stadium with only 10 minutes to spare. FC Denver won that match 2-1 on an 89th-minute banger from 35 yards out from centerback Kyle Crouse. And it gave the team a shot of confidence moving forward.
The team had to fly in and out of Texas for its Wednesday game in just 24 hours. Why?
“Because guys needed to be back at work on Thursday,” replied Elbin.
Many of FC Denver’s players are professionals, but none is a professional soccer player. Midfielder Jake Lister is a salesman for a software startup. Lashaw Salta, also a midfielder, does web development for a finance firm. And winger Alex Nelson is a full-time student. Joel Miller, the team’s starting centerback and longest-tenured player, is an architect with a Denver-area firm. Drew Melin does triple duty: He’s a supervisor at Wheat Ridge Animal Hospital and a fullback with the team.
He is also the head coach.
FC Denver’s match against the Switchbacks will be streamed on ESPN+ Wednesday night at 7 o’clock, and the team is organizing a bus for its fans and supporters to travel to Colorado Springs.