The Houston Dynamo will host Sporting Kansas City in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Round of 16. The match will take place on June 27 or June 28. The date, kickoff time, broadcast and/or streaming information, and tickets for the match will be released in the coming days.
The Dynamo advanced to the Round of 16 with a 3-2 win at North Carolina FC on Wednesday night. With the score tied at 2-2 in the 88th minute, the match was delayed due to lightning around the stadium. After an 88-minute weather delay, play resumed and the match finished 2-2 after 90 minutes, leading to two 15-minute added extra time periods. Dynamo midfielder Memo Rodriguez picked a good time to score his first goal with the club. The 21-year-old Dynamo Academy alumnus struck a right-footed blast in the 109th minute that proved to be the game-winner.
At the conclusion of the fourth round, the 16 remaining clubs were placed in a fixed bracket and divided geographically, regardless of league affiliation, into groups of four. A random draw conducted earlier this morning then determined the fifth-round pairings within each group.
Houston and Sporting were drawn into the Central Region along with fellow MLS clubs FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids. The winner of the Houston-Kansas City match will face the winner of Dallas and Colorado in early July. The tournament will continue throughout the summer leading up to the final on September 20.
Sporting Kansas City currently sits atop the MLS Western Conference standings with a 7-4-5 record and 26 points through 16 games. Peter Vermes’ squad has been the stingiest in the league, conceding just 11 goals in those 16 games. This will mark the third consecutive season in which Houston and Kansas City have met in the Open Cup. Sporting eliminated the Dynamo in the 2015 quarterfinals and the Dynamo returned the favor last year in the Round of 16.
Dating back to 1914, the U.S. Open Cup is the oldest cup competition in United States soccer and is among the oldest in the world. Open to all affiliated amateur and professional teams in the United States, the annual U.S. Open Cup is a 100-plus-year-old single-elimination tournament. In 1999, the U.S. Open Cup was renamed the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup to honor the long-time soccer supporter and pioneer. Hunt, who died in 2006, was one of the sport’s first major ownership figures in the United States and is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
The 2017 edition of the tournament began with a modern-era record 99 teams in a single-elimination, bracket-style format. Major League Soccer teams were drawn into the competition at the start of the fourth round.
The Dynamo are 12-10-1 all-time in U.S Open Cup competition, and have now won their opening match of the tournament in each of the last five years. The club’s best runs came in 2006 and 2009 when it advanced to the semifinals.
