Nearly 2,000 miles to the Northwest in Seattle the temperature was in the high 70s, cool and comfortable. The story was different down in El Paso, where the thermometer reached a sweltering 99 degrees by kickoff of the 1995 US Open Cup Semifinal between the USISL Pro League’s El Paso Patriots and the Seattle Sounders of the A-League.
The weather no doubt helped the Patriots pull off the 1-0 upset of the Sounders. Patriots captain Gambino Amparan scored the lone goal and goalkeeper Jake Arrambide shut out the A-League’s top offense as El Paso became just the second Texas club to reach the US Open Cup Final.
In response to the game being moved up a week on short notice, the Patriots moved the kickoff to the middle of the afternoon (2 p.m. local time) in order for the heat to be at its highest point. El Paso also let the grass grow longer at Dudley Field in an effort to slow down the high-powered Sounders offense.
Seattle is currently 13-3 and in first place in the A-League and are considered by many to be the best outdoor team in the country. El Paso plays in the USISL Pro League, which is considered a level below the A-League.
1995 US Open Cup Preview: The state of American soccer in 1995
1995 USOC Round 1 POTR: Carlos Llamosa
1995 USOC Q-Finals POTR: Ben Crawley
1995 USOC Semis POTR: Jake Arrambide
1995 USOC Final POTR: Jeff Causey
1995 USOC Player of Tourney: Rob Ukrop
1995 US Open Cup Results (click on the score of the game for a match report)
The game’s only goal came in the 36th minute when defender Gambino Amparan headed home a corner kick from Neri Bautista. It was the first time the Sounders defense had given up a corner kick goal all season.
One Patriots player who had about as big an impact as the heat was goalkeeper Jake Arrambide. The first-year pro made a pair of crucial one-on-one saves in the second half to preserve the shutout.
In the 67th minute, Sounders forward Jason Farrell beat Patriots defender Hector Cervantes, leaving him alone with Arrambide. Once inside the penalty area Farrell took his shot, but Arrambide came off his goal line for the save.
“When their guy (Farrell) got past Hector, and that doesn’t happen too much, I had to come out,” Arrambide said of the save. Four minutes later, Arrambide responded to another Sounders one-on-one chance with a diving save. Arrambide finished with six saves for the game.
“When I got to my hotel room, I decided they weren’t going to score on me.” Arrambide said after the game. “I was going to get anywhere, get any ball to make sure they didn’t score. In my mind, they just weren’t going to score.”
While Sounders head coach Alan Hinton acknowledged the heat was a challenge, he refused to blame the loss on it.
“The heat was a big-time factor and I doubt any of our players ever played in this type of weather,” Hinton told Soccer America magazine. “We are not going to use the heat as an excuse. I put together the best lineup I had available to me and sometimes these results happen in soccer.”
“The Patriots played the best.” Hinton, a former Nottingham Forest and Derby County player told the El Paso Times. “We couldn’t find a way to do anything. I went into their locker room right now and told them to win in the Final.”
While Sounders goalkeeper Marcus Hanemann felt the best team didn’t win, he seemed to acknowledge a bit of overconfidence by the Sounders.
“I still think we’re better than the Patriots, we came in and expected this to be a cakewalk.”
With the final whistle Patriots head coach Oscar Lira was doused with water as the celebration began.
“The whole United States will be talking about the El Paso Patriots.” Lira told the El Paso Times. “This is the first time in El Paso soccer history that El Paso is at the top of all of soccer in the country. We have reached a higher plateau. This was very important for my job to develop soccer in El Paso.”
One man on the Patriots sideline who made an impact was P.A. announcer Paul Strelzin, whose raucous performance led Alan Hinton to call him the “12th man for the Patriots.”
“I have never seen anything like it in my 37 years of pro soccer.” Hinton said of Strelzin’s performance “If he were in another country, people would be beating up each other. He definitely disturbed me and my players.”
With the win the 1995 US Open Cup Final is guaranteed to have a USISL winner, with the Pro League’s Chicago Stingers visiting the Premier League Richmond Kickers in the other Semifinal. USISL Cup coordinator Lamar Green said there is a 50-50 chance the Final would be in El Paso.
The USISL has had success in the Open Cup before. In 1991, the Richardson Rockets became the first Texas club to reach the Final, and then reached the Semifinals in 1992.
“It’s an amazing result to have two teams from the USISL in the final of the Cup,” Green told the El Paso Times. “El Paso’s victory was a very big surprise. We couldn’t be happier.”