Four players. Four U.S. Open Cup titles.
Sounders FC has seen players come and go over the course of six years in Major League Soccer. But four players have suited up in Rave Green all six seasons, earning the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup title four times to match the all-time MLS club record. Osvaldo Alonso, Brad Evans, Leo Gonzalez and Zach Scott share that distinction, and all four played key roles in Seattle’s 3-1 extra time win over the Philadelphia Union on Tuesday night.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s hard to imagine it’s our fourth,” Scott beamed after gutting out 120 minutes at PPL Park, including the last 40 while toting a knee knock that nearly had him subbed out of the match. “It’s such a tough tournament to play in.”
Scott helped anchor the back line and Gonzalez played one of his best games of the year in slowing the Philadelphia attack. Alonso was his typical midfield enforcer and Evans was the calming presence leading the charge, keeping the Sounders cool even in the face of a 1-0 first-half deficit.
Alonso is the only player to have played every minute of every championship match won by Seattle. Gonzalez played every minute in three of them, Evans appeared in three and it was the first championship won with Scott on the field. The bond the four hold and their place in history can hardly be measured simply in their goals scored, their minutes played or their tackles won.
This time around, Evans captained the squad, marking the first championship won since Kasey Keller retired as the club’s only captain in 2011. Lifting the trophy after wearing the captain’s armband didn’t carry any extra weight for Evans, though, acknowledging the number of qualified leaders and team-first players on the Seattle roster, which carries its own reward.
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“Phenomenal. It’s not something I ever thought about. I just try to show it on the field more than in the locker room. I’m not super vocal in the locker room, but on the field, I try to get guys going by leading by example with work rate,” Evans said. “The band could be on anybody’s arm and they’ll wear it with pride.”
As much pride as the four four-time winners have in the organization’s successes, they also carried the disappointment of the previous two years when Seattle wasn’t able to hoist the Open Cup. Seattle lost in a shootout in the final to Sporting Kansas City in 2012 and fell in the third round to the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the NASL in 2013.
Those matches served as motivation for Seattle, who sought a return to the CONCACAF Champions League, where it became the first MLS team to top a Liga MX side in the knockout round with a series win over Tigres in the 2013 quarterfinals.
“From day one we looked at this year as an opportunity to right some wrongs from last year. Getting knocked out early by a very good Tampa Bay side, we were very disappointed,” Scott said. “We wanted to get back to the Champions League. There is definitely some pride in playing in that. We’ve done well in the past and we wanted to get in a situation where we were in that competition next year.”
