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Union into the U.S. Open Cup Semifinal After Yet Another Weather Delay and Yet Another Late Winner
Published:
The Union are into the U.S. Open Cup semifinal after this game against Red Bull was finally completed around 11:30 on Wednesday night. It was originally scheduled in July, rained out, rescheduled for this week, delayed by 2 hours, then completed with an 89th-minute winner from Olwethu Makhanya, of all people:
This is the magic of the Open Cup, a center half scoring on a set piece rebound in front of a half-full stadium on a weeknight. It wouldn’t be the USOC in Philadelphia without random quirkiness throughout.
More importantly, the Union will play a September road game in Nashville with a trip to the final on the line. The winner of that game gets the Austin/Minnesota winner. It’s not murderer’s row by any stretch of the imagination, but Nashville is tough, nine wins, one loss, and three draws at home this season. Philly is 0-2 against them this season, including a 1-0 road loss in which they couldn’t score despite playing up a man for 40+ minutes. You hope that one was a blip on the radar and they show up looking for revenge in a month’s time.
In their history, the Union have reached the USOC final three times and lost all three of those games, once in regular time, once in added time, and once on penalty kicks, with two of those games played at home (Seattle and KC) and one on the road (Houston). Additionally, they went to the 2012 semifinal and lost 2-0 to Kansas City at home. This will be the 5th time the Union have reached the USOC semifinal in 16 seasons, and they didn’t even play the competition last year or in 2021 or 2020 because of Leagues Cup and COVID, respectively. If I have the math right, it’s 5 semifinal appearances in 13 USOC tournaments, so they’re reaching the final four at a 38.4% clip. Pretty sick. Now they gotta finish the job and win the whole thing.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com