{"id":1713,"date":"2024-03-01T21:54:12","date_gmt":"2024-03-01T21:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=1713"},"modified":"2024-03-01T21:54:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T21:54:12","slug":"lionel-messi-inter-miami-to-skip-u-s-open-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/?p=1713","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi, Inter Miami to skip U.S. Open Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>Lionel Messi and Inter Miami won&#8217;t compete in this year&#8217;s U.S. Open Cup and just eight of Major League Soccer&#8217;s 26 American teams will enter the competition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles FC, Salt Lake, San Jose and Seattle will enter the 96-team competition, the U.S. Soccer Federation said Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>Houston is the defending tournament champion and the others were among the top seven teams from last year&#8217;s regular-season Supporters&#8217; Shield standings who are not in this year&#8217;s CONCACAF Champions Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>MLS teams will enter in the fourth round and face only lower-tier squads until a head-to-head MLS matchup is unavoidable. Last year, 18 MLS teams entered in the third round and eight in the fourth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>Houston beat Miami 2-1 in last year&#8217;s final. Messi missed the game because of an injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>Since the start of MLS in 1996, the only team not from the first tier to win the competition was the 1999 Rochester Raging Rhinos of the USL&#8217;s second-tier A-League, which beat the Colorado Rapids 2-0 in the final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>MLS announced Dec. 15 it was pulling all its teams from the nation&#8217;s oldest soccer competition, which started in 1914, and was replacing them with third-tier developmental sides from MLS Next Pro.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>The USSF said five days later it was treating MLS&#8217;s decision as a request that it was turning down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>In its announcement, the USSF said it improved financial incentives, increased travel reimbursement and added new commercial partners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>MLS said it will enter 11 teams from its third tier: Austin, Carolina, Chattanooga, Chicago, Colorado, Crown Legacy, Minnesota, LA Galaxy, New York City, New York Red Bulls and Portland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>The second tier United Soccer League Championship is entering all 24 teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a>First-round matches will be scheduled for March 19-21, followed by the second round on April 2 and 3, the third round on April 16 and 17, the fourth round on May 7 and 8 and the fifth round on May 21 and 22. Quarterfinals will be July 9 and 10, semifinals on Aug. 27 and 28 and the championship on Sept. 25.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a><i>Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"mg-t-b-20 ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt88 mg-t-b-20 article-content\" data-v-1093115a><i><strong>[Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? <\/strong><\/i><i><strong>Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily<\/strong><\/i><i><strong>.]<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi and Inter Miami won&#8217;t compete in this year&#8217;s U.S. Open Cup and just eight of Major League Soccer&#8217;s 26 American teams will enter the competition. Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles FC, Salt Lake, San Jose and Seattle will enter the 96-team competition, the U.S. Soccer Federation said Friday. Houston is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}