The Atlanta Ruckus made it 2-0 for the A-League in the 1995 US Open Cup with a 4-2 win over the USISL Pro League’s Tampa Bay Cyclones in front of an announced crowd of 810 fans at Adams Stadium in Atlanta.
Despite the final score and jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the second half, Ruckus head coach Lothar Osiander wasn’t impressed with his team’s performance. “It was uglier than sin, as they say” Osiander told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The team just didn’t put up tonight. It became very sloppy and very frustrating.”
While the win wasn’t pretty, according to Osiander, it continued a win streak in the tournament for the former US national team manager. Last year, he led San Francisco-based club Greek American AC to the US Open Cup championship.
While the Cyclones came into the game riding a five-game winning streak in league play, it was an uphill climb for the road team as the Cyclones were playing without six starters, two of them due to injury and four others who were cup tied with other Open Cup clubs.
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Brian Moore, who led the Atlanta Magic to a USISL championship as a rookie last year, opened the scoring for Atlanta in the 28th minute. Moore sent the ball over the head of the Cyclones rookie goalkeeper David Winner.
Playing with five defenders and utilizing an effective offside trap, Tampa Bay held the Ruckus to a 1-0 halftime lead.
A few minutes into the second half, Moore scored his second goal in the 53rd minute for a 2-0 lead on a Staale Soebye assist. Soebye was a Norweigan player who was a two-time All-American at the University of San Francisco before turning pro.
Two minutes later, trailing by two, Tampa Bay were hit with another gut punch. Defender Chris Charles, a regular with the Trinidad & Tobago national team, broke his finger and had to leave the game. Because the Cyclones had used both of their available substitutes (George Fotopoulos, Keiran O’Neill) in the first half, Tampa Bay had to play the last 35 minutes of the match with 10 men.
The Ruckus capitalized on their man advantage in the 61st minute when former NAIA All-American Lenin Steenkamp took a pass from Bruce Murray, the all-time leading scorer for the US national team, to make it 3-0.
Seemingly in control with a three-goal lead, the Ruckus allowed the Cyclones to get back in the game. Tampa broke through with eight minutes remaining when Fotopoulos delivered a ball to Adrian Bush. Last year’s national player of the year at the University of Tampa put it into the back of the net with a diving header to beat Atlanta goalkeeper Mun Young Yi.
Fotopoulos provided the assist on the Cyclones second goal by Mario Yepes in the 90th minute, and Tampa suddenly had hopes of forcing extra time.
All hopes of a miracle comeback were dashed in stoppage time, when Murray beat a Tampa defender and easily scored in a wide-open net.
Atlanta moves on the face the Richmond Kickers in the Quarterfinals in July.