Late night soccer in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup on the West Coast is always a recipe for drama. It remained true at PayPal Park Tuesday night when Austin FC knocked out the San Jose Earthquakes on penalties after a 2-2 draw in the Quarterfinals.
Austin FC fell behind twice in the game, but each time managed to equalize with a goal from the penalty spot. After a 4-2 win in the penalty kick shootout, Austin FC earns the club’s first-ever trip to the US Open Cup Semifinals.
In the early going, it looked like San Jose might run away with it. The hosts came out firing on all cylinders and controlling all phases of the game, and they quickly got their reward.
In the 12th minute, Ousseni Bouda, who was a crucial playmaker on the wing all night long, dealt into the center from the right, and Chicho Arango struck it confidently into the top-right corner to put the Quakes on the board first. They’d maintain that lead well and threaten for more, but even though they didn’t double their advantage, 1-0 going into halftime was still a positive start.
Meanwhile, Austin looked to flip the 45 and catch the hosts on the B-side. Things started with modest improvement, as Los Verdes saw more of the ball and shot it more often, though San Jose maintained the edge in both categories.
In a one-score game, though, it only takes one little opening, and Austin found it when Earthquakes defender Max Floriani fouled Brandon Vázquez in the penalty area. A couple minutes later, Quakes keeper Daniel dove left, but Vázquez aimed to the right, and just like that, we were all square again.
On top of giving his team new life, it marked a significant individual achievement, as Vázquez brought his goalscoring total to a tournament-best four goals. It was also the US international’s 13th career US Open Cup goal, which bring him into a tie for second-most in the Modern Era (1995-present) with David Bulow, Kenny Cooper, Johnny Menyongar, and Jaime Moreno.
However, Vázquez wouldn’t get long to celebrate, because not even five minutes later, he fell untouched to the ground while the Quakes were on the attack. At first, the crowd assumed the Austin striker was just flopping to try and stop the flow of play, but when he continued writhing in pain and clutching his right knee after the sequence naturally ended, it was clear he was genuinely in pain. Vázquez ultimately left the pitch on a stretcher with his head in his hands, and Austin FC would have to figure out their way forward without him. (UPDATE: Brandon Vazquez suffers season-ending injury)
“As (Vázquez) was going off … all of us told him right then and there that we had him (and) we were gonna win the game,” said Austin’s captain and keeper Brad Stuver after the match. “He’s done a lot for us, and we wanted to make sure that he knew that we were all behind him.”
As both sides scrambled to score the all-important next goal, the refs’ standing with the home crowd plummeted. The fans objected particularly strongly just past the 80-minute mark when Cristian Espinoza, who had subbed on earlier in the half and taken the captain’s armband from a still-playing Chicho, got bowled over in the box, but the refs deemed it insufficient to award San Jose a penalty.
Whether they got the calls or not, the two teams pressed on and pressed hard, creating furious chances and denying each other scores. However, just before we were supposed to go to extra time, an extra twist of controversy hit.
In the 96th minute, as Espinoza was trying to deal with a midair ball around midfield, Austin defender Mikel Desler made a careless challenge and put his spikes straight into Espinoza’s right leg, leaving a gash so deep it took ten stitches to close. Despite both the severity of the injury and the fact that VAR was available as of this round, Desler got away with a yellow, and Quakes coach Bruce Arena was very quick to note that in the post-match press conference.
“That foul on is a straight red card,” Arena told reporters. “The officiating was comical.”
Espinoza, for his part, would try to soldier on as best he could, but Arena soon pulled him from the game to receive medical attention while Chicho retook the captain’s band. Meanwhile, eight minutes of stoppage time turned into 13 minutes actually played before the referees finally blew the whistle and officially sent things into extra time.
Galvanized by recent events, the Earthquakes charged hard out of the gate, once again asserting control of the match’s tempo. Just as it had in the first half of regular time, that paid off in a hurry. In the 98th and 99th minutes, the Quakes decided to fight Austin captain and keeper Brad Stuver with sheer volume, as a scramble in net saw four straight shots saved or blocked before substitute Benji Kikanović finally turned a rebound into a result, scoring a two-touch right-footer to put the California squad back on top.
However, Austin still had plenty of fight in them, and when they earned a corner just before the 105th minute, it seemed like they might do some damage with it. In a melding of substitute minds, Žan Kolmanič took the corner and placed it expertly, while Myrto Uzuni took the ball relayed to him and headed it into the net. Unfortunately for him, though, the flag went up for offside, wiping his goal from the record and ensuring San Jose went into the break with the lead.
All San Jose needed from here was to close out the final 15 and punch that ticket to the Semifinals, but Austin had other ideas.
With the Quakes now finally easing up on possession, Los Verdes got all the time they needed to set up and threaten to score. They’d get another golden chance to do so halfway through the period when Quakes ironman Mark-Anthony Kaye fouled Owen Wolff in the box, meaning yet another penalty for Austin. Naturally, this went over about as well as a teacher announcing recess was cancelled. The younger fans in the crowd chanted “Ref, you suck!”, adults chanted something a bit more vulgar, and the Earthquakes themselves tried to insist the foul had actually taken place outside the box. That complaint proved unpersuasive, to say the least, and although Daniel guessed the incoming penalty correctly this time, Uzuni made sure to put it out of reach.
After being denied by a flag minutes prior, the Albanian finally had his goal, and with the score sitting at 2-2, a penalty kick shootout was back on the menu. The Quakes tried their best to avert it, making a couple more shot attempts, but none of them got through. As such, the game became the 13th Open Cup match of 2025 to go all the way to a penalty shootout.
As “Enter Sandman” set the mood for the 10,754 fans in attendance, San Jose got the chance to shoot first. However, their fight started on a disastrous note when Stuver stuffed Chicho’s stop-go shot. Chicho immediately protested that Stuver had been off the line, and photographs from behind the net suggest the Colombian may have had a point, but the refs dismissed it as yet more arguing from a player who’d been jawing with them all night and refused to grant a retake. Diego Rubio immediately pounced on the opening, putting his shot past Daniel to give Austin the advantage.
Josef Martínez quickly tied things up with his shot, but Myrto Uzuni fired back to make himself 2 for 2 on the night and gave Austin a lead they’d never hand back. Stuver cemented that in stone on the following kick, diving to his right to stop DeJuan Jones’s shot to put a cherry on top of the Austin captain’s phenomenal day in net. Then, with Robert Taylor’s shot straight down the middle, the Texan side officially had San Jose on the brink of elimination. For the first time all night, the Earthquakes’ supporters sections, who usually sandwich the stadium with noise from both ends, fell quiet enough to let Austin’s small faction of traveling fans be heard.
Ian Harkes scored to keep the Quakes alive, but the math was not on their side as Owen Wolff stepped up with both sides’ fates in his hands. The 20-year-old ran up and fired in one fluid motion, sending the ball to the bottom-left and Daniel diving in the wrong direction, and Austin officially clinched the shootout 4-2.
For Bruce Arena, it was a bitter way to waste what had been, in many respects, a strong performance from his side.
“Our team played very well,” Arena said. “Austin was not at all dangerous in the attack the entire evening, and we conceded two penalty kicks. That certainly is our fault, and we’re to blame for that, for sure.”
The Earthquakes’ Jamar Ricketts, who played a valiant 95 minutes as a right midfielder before subbing off with a minor injury, also found plenty to praise about his side’s effort despite the result.
“I think it’s great, honestly, how the team rallied up,” Ricketts said, “and we kept fighting all 120 minutes. Especially the players that came on the field, or the players that came off the field—like, when Cristian was hurt, he was on the sideline yelling, coaching. I think it’s just great to know that somebody’s got your back. If somebody got beat, the next person was stepping up … We can take it to the next game knowing we have something to prove, and that we’ll rally behind every single player on the field.”
Meanwhile, for Los Verdes, it was a cathartic and hard-fought victory to put the club closer to its first trophy than ever before.
“Everyone that stepped on the field today brought something to help the team,” said Austin coach Nico Estévez, “and I think those nights are a big deal for the fans to enjoy. There is some magic on those type of nights.”
With this win, Austin now have an all-time Open Cup record of 3-2-1, with a 1-0 record in penalty kicks. More importantly, they’re in the Semifinals for the first time in team history, blowing all their previous appearances out of the water. Austin will travel up to St. Paul, Minn. the week of Sept. 16-17 to face Minnesota United, with the right to host October’s Open Cup final hanging in the balance.