US Oopsie Cup

The Major League Soccer sides played their first games in this year's US Open Cup this week, and half of them got knocked off by lower-level opponents. One of the most unlikely was the New England Revolution being beaten by the USL-2 Harrisburg City Islanders.

In a burst of insanity (or apathy) New England coach Steve Nicol made all three of his allowed subs at halftime. This came back to burn him big time as Kheli Dube went down with an ankle injury with almost a half hour left in the game. Twenty minutes later the Revs suffered another injury, forcing them to play the rest of regulation and all of extra time with just nine players.

You've got to feel for the Revs, but what the heck was he thinking leaving himself with no subs?

The USL/MLS overlap

With the fantastic results of Montreal and Puerto Rico in the CONCACAF Champions League and the highly entertaining US Open Cup final involving the Charleston Battery, some would argue that the gap between the USL and MLS is narrowing. This may be due (at least in part) to the influx of former MLS players into USL.

There are a number of players on these three teams with MLS experience, including two players with more than 100 appearances. (There are also a number of players that were drafted by MLS teams, but never played. Those players are not listed below)

Here are those players, listed in order of MLS appearances.

Charleston Battery
Nelson Akwari 78
Stephen Armstrong 77
Lazo Alavanja 58
John Wilson 32
Dusty Hudok 12
Marco Reda 8

Montreal Impact
Matt Jordan 117
Pato Aguilera 19
Felix Brillant 19
David Testo 16
Adam Braz 13
Roberto Brown 13

Puerto Rico Islanders
Petter Villegas 117
Fabrice Noel 18
Bill Gaudette 17
Alberto Delgado 14
Osei Telesford 2

(edit -- I missed Stephen Armstrong in the original list. Thanks for pointing that out Mike!)