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International Portland Select

2018 US Open Cup Qualifying Round 2: Indios Denver FC use home field advantage to oust Oregon’s IPS/Marathon Taverna

October 26, 2017 by Jim Hart

Steven Robellada of Indios Denver FC salutes the fans in the stands in a 2018 US Open Cup qualifying match against IPS/Marathon Taverna. Photo: Indios Denver FC
Steven Robellada of Indios Denver FC salutes the fans in the stands in a 2018 US Open Cup qualifying match against IPS/Marathon Taverna. Photo: Indios Denver FC
Steven Robellada of Indios Denver FC salutes the fans in the stands in a 2018 US Open Cup qualifying match against IPS/Marathon Taverna. Photo: Indios Denver FC

MORE: 2018 US Open Cup Qualifying Results/Schedule

On a gorgeous autumn afternoon in the suburb of Englewood Colo., in a high school football stadium with a view of downtown Denver, Indios Denver FC treated their guests rather rudely by dispatching them in a 4-2 manner in front of about 250 mostly Indios supporters.

Indios, a club founded in 2015, is mostly Hispanic in its cultural connections and its members.

The opponents, International Portland Select (IPS) / Marathon Taverna is a club that hails from Portland Ore., and has competed in the last two US Open Cup qualifying tournaments, but just picked up their first win in the last round of this year. They are well-traveled since they are the only team from the Pacific Northwest to enter the competition, and since there’s no local teams to play against they often have to make lengthy trips or teams have to make lengthy trips to play them in the Rose City. IPS had traveled the day before the match to Denver and were feeling some of the effects of jet lag and altitude.

Indios Denver FC players pose for a team photo ahead of the club's 2018 US Open Cup qualifying match against IPS/Marathon Taverna. Photo: Indios Denver FC
Indios Denver FC players pose for a team photo ahead of the club’s 2018 US Open Cup qualifying match against IPS/Marathon Taverna. Photo: Indios Denver FC

The match was an ideal setup, two very talented teams that were ready to show off their skills and put on a great show for the fans. And a great show was what they delivered.

The opening half started off with 20 minutes of high energy box-to-box action. Right off the bat in the 10th minute Indios’ Julio Rodriguez picked up a yellow for aggressive play. There were a lot of nerves showing early and players were over-anxious and wanted to make big plays. A trend that would be seen for most of the match.

The scoreline was finally broken in the 16th minute with an own goal scored of Indios. Putting the hosts on the board first. Less than a minute later, Indios put another in the net when Christian Ochoa buried a shot.

The game then went into a more structured period. Both teams seemed to get a handle on their defensive posture, the pace of the match slowed, then in the 38th a through ball made its way into Pablo Salinas whot put it in the back of the net for IPS to cut the lead in half.

The 40th minute saw a substitution for Indios as Cristian Gomez came on for the injured Sajjad Alfatlawi. Which brought the game into halftime with Indios leading 2-1. Indios was controlling the game pretty well at this point, they had more shots on goal, had a few corner kicks and felt more comfortable on the front foot.

Indios Denver FC logoAs the sun began to set in the west, long evening shadows began to take over the pitch. Indios was playing into the sun, however, there was no seeming effect on the players. Coach Jose Edgar Espinoza said after the game that Indios kept trying the counter-attack against IPS’ high line on the offside trap. Indios continued to push that line with ball after ball over the top.

Goal kicks were launched 60-70 meters into the on-rushing attackers to try to break the IPS high line. With a very slick play off a back heel pass in the box by Steven Robellada buried the third golazo and scored the winner.

In the 55the minute, ’ IPS’ Nathan Pogue tightened the score up at 3-2 with a lightening bolt direct free kick that definitely got Indios attention.

As the match started getting late the physicality started heating up. What was a somewhat gentlemanly match began to turn into a yellow card every couple of minutes as the time ticked away. The 3-2 scoreline made IPS push all of their attacking players forward, until suddenly Indios had three players open in front of the net.

Suddenly bodies were on the pitch, mayhem was the order of the day and a penalty was called. Said penalty was dispatched in the 95th minute of play and that was that on a 4-2 victory for the home side.

According to Indios captain Jose Hernandez, Sunday’s win was an inspired performance as one of their assistant coaches, Jaime Hernandez was back in Mexico for funeral services for his mother.

“This win is dedicated to Jaime,” Hernandez said.

As for IPS Marathon, they will head back to the Northwest and try for another year. Traveling to Colorado can be difficult under the best conditions and these were very good conditions for a match

Filed Under: 2018 US Open Cup, Feature - Qualifying, US Open Cup, US Open Cup Qualifying Tagged With: 2018 US Open Cup qualifying, Indios Denver FC, International Portland Select

Travel costs are a barrier for many US Open Cup qualifying teams, now USSF is offering help

October 21, 2017 by Josh Hakala

The US Soccer Federation will provide some financial assistance to cover the cost of flights for amateur teams that have to make a trip longer than a six-hour drive for a US Open Cup qualifying match. Photo: Richard Eriksson - Flickr
The US Soccer Federation will provide some financial assistance to cover the cost of flights for amateur teams that have to make a trip longer than a six-hour drive for a US Open Cup qualifying match. Photo: Richard Eriksson - Flickr
The US Soccer Federation will provide some financial assistance to cover the cost of flights for amateur teams that have to make a trip longer than a six-hour drive for a US Open Cup qualifying match. Photo: Richard Eriksson – Flickr

There has not been an open division amateur club from Oregon qualify for the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup since 1992. So the International Portland Select (now operating under the name of IPS/Marathon Taverna) set out to change that in 2015. The club entered the newly-formed Open Division qualifying tournament with hopes of representing their state in the country’s oldest cup competition.

After getting a free pass into the Second Round because a team couldn’t afford the trek to Portland from Kansas City, they drew a team in Texas for their next match. The cost of flying a whole team roughly 2,000 miles to Dallas was too much for IPS so they withdrew from the competition.

After losing their opening game last year at home, they are back for the 2018 qualifying tournament. This weekend, IPS are prepared for another expensive and lengthy trip for a Round 2 qualifier in Colorado to take on Indios Denver FC. However, due to a recently-approved policy change, IPS, and other teams like them, will have some help.

MORE: 2018 US Open Cup qualifying Round 1 review, Round 2 schedule

For the first time, the US Soccer Federation will offer financial assistance to clubs in the open division amateur qualifying tournament who have to make road trips longer than six hours. Teams won’t find this information in the 2018 qualifying handbook because this new policy was approved after it was released. The three clubs that qualified for what the federation describes as a “partial airfare subsidy” were offered $200 per airline ticket after the team covers the first $100. According to the USSF, any airline ticket that exceeds the $300 will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

This is clearly an effort to help out amateur clubs that don’t have large budgets and to minimize the number of teams who are forced to forfeit. There have been 15 games forfeited over the last three years, and travel burdens are a big reason for that.

For this weekend’s Second Round, three teams qualified for the travel subsidies: IPS Marathon Taverna (Portland, Ore. to Denver, Colo.), Stegman’s SC (Minneapolis, Minn. to Mooseheart, Ill.) and Ann Arbor FC (Ann Arbor, Mich. to Rochester, N.Y.). Unfortunately, Ann Arbor FC recently confirmed that they are unable to make their trip to Western New York due to a lack of player availability so they forfeited their match.

For those two remaining clubs, those lengthy road trips would have been a major blow to their limited budgets.

Stegman's Soccer Club logo“The financial burden is significant to a team like ours regardless of whether we’re drawn away and have to travel or to host and need to find a suitable venue for the match,” said Nick Sindt, one of the founding members of Stegman’s SC. “Obviously hosting allows us to offset some of the burden by ticket sales, but there’s never a guarantee that we’d recoup all of our expenses.”

Teams like IPS and Stegman’s SC (which is affiliated with the supporter-owned Minneapolis City SC of the NPSL), stuggle with the fact that historically very few teams near them sign up for Open Cup qualifying. In the Modern Era, only three amateur clubs from the Land of 10,000 Lakes that have registered for the open division qualifying tournament. This means that if they have to travel, they are surrounded by states that rarely enter multiple teams into the tournament. North and South Dakota have never entered the tournament, the only Iowa team to enter has been affiliated with the Des Moines Menace (no entry since 2014), and Wisconsin hasn’t had a team participate in the tournament since 2015.

For IPS, it’s even worse, as the states of Oregon and Washington have a history of not entering the qualifying tournament, with only a handful of Cascadia teams signing up since 1995.

International Portland Select / Marathon Taverna logoWhen teams like IPS are located so far away, it’s just as difficult for teams to travel to them as it is for them to travel. In 2015, the Kansas City Athletics claimed that a trip to Portland — nearly 1,800 miles by car — would have ruined the club financially.

Once the Athletics forfeited, IPS were facing an even longer trip for their Round 2 match against the North Texas Rayados. A drive from Portland to Dallas is roughly 2,000 miles, so it would require flying. The cost of flying a soccer team and coaches, combined with transportation when they arrive, meals and a hotel stay becomes an expensive operation. Too much for IPS to handle, so they announced that they would have to forfeit.

Stegman’s SC explored their travel options thanks to the work of Minneapolis City’s business director Sarah Schreier, and they have decided to travel by bus from Minneapolis to Mooseheart, Ill., which is located about an hour’s drive west of Chicago. According to Schreier, they chose to travel by bus because it was more efficient, both financially and logistically, to drive directly to Mooseheart, rather than flying to Chicago and then paying for transportation for the entire team to drive about an hour to their destination. (Not to mention the potential traffic issues of getting out to Chicago’s western suburbs)

Schreier says the total cost of the trip is roughly $5,500 – $6,000, which is a lot for an amateur club, even for a club like Minneapolis City (which is the part of Stegman’s SC organization) that enjoys some impressive fan support. The amount of money they will receive from the USSF is unclear at this point. The federation’s travel subsidy plan did not initially include the prospect of a team choosing to drive, so Schreier says they are in discussions with the USSF to determine how much assistance they will receive.

While IPS was unable to provide their travel expenses prior to this story being published, one can expect that flying a team from Portland to Denver is more costly than traveling from Minneapolis to Mooseheart.

The USSF’s open division qualifying tournament for the US Open Cup is in its third year and still faces challenges and growing pains. The goal, one can assume, is to minimize the number of forfeited games. There will always be player availability issues, or teams that will fail to register players properly, but educating the teams in advance on what is required, both logistically and financially, could go a long way to reaching that goal. Now, with the federation offering financial assistance for teams forced to make lengthy trips, this should help remove some barriers for some teams to compete in the country’s oldest cup competition.

“I think the new policy is great for all of the teams who aren’t professional clubs,” said Sindt. “The majority of clubs in our position, or in the lower levels of the US Soccer pyramid, are run without significant outside investment and therefore exist on shoestring budgets. Having money available from the federation to mitigate the travel costs keeps teams and clubs like us from mortgaging our future for a chance to compete, which should then see more teams able to enter in the future and hopefully fewer and shorter trips all around.”

Filed Under: 2018 US Open Cup, Feature - Qualifying, US Open Cup, US Open Cup Qualifying Tagged With: 2018 US Open Cup qualifying, Ann Arbor FC Elite, International Portland Select, Stegman's SC

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