Union Omaha travel to MLS debutants
As dominant as their USL League One title winning season in 2021 was (leading the league in both goals scored and goals against, never losing consecutive games and never losing by more than a single goal), Union Omaha received much, much more attention the following year with their run to the quarterfinals in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. The third round is when MLS teams are introduced, and it was in this round last year that Omaha defeated its first of two MLS clubs, four-time winners Chicago Fire on the road at Soldier Field. This year, they were once again drawn against an MLS team as early as possible, but this time going against a St. Louis City SC team that is in much, much better form than Chicago were at this stage last year.
For MLS teams, surviving the U.S. Open Cup seems to be more about roster management than anything else. Open Cup scheduling is limited to only the midweek. And in the opening rounds, the vast majority of MLS teams are more worried about their respective seasons than anything else. The Round of 16 and quarterfinal rounds seem to be when most MLS teams become keen to the idea of winning silverware. Until then most of these games seem to revolve around momentum, and whether or not the lower-league side that happens to score first can hold off the MLS team for the remainder of the 90 minutes. Omaha’s cup run might have been a little more special because they bucked this trend, coming from behind in both their victories against Chicago and Minnesota United.
It seems that newer teams tend to prioritize the out-of-league competitions like the Open Cup and the CONCACAF Champions League higher than their predecessors. Last year, for example, out of Austin FC’s top 11 players in terms of games started, four of them started in their third-round match last year against San Antonio FC, including leading scorer Sebastián Driussi. However, Chicago only started two of theirs against Omaha. Either way, we’re likely to see only a smattering of St. Louis City’s regulars on Tuesday. One strategy they could employ would be to start their regular center backs, Kyle Hiebert and Tim Parker, and let the rest of the squad figure out how to score goals, maybe revolving around a player like Tomáš Ostrák, who has played somewhat significant minutes but hasn’t started a match since April 1.
We could very possibly see some faces familiar to USL League One. Aziel Jackson, formerly of North Carolina FC, and Jon Bell of New England Revolution (and their reserve team) are members of the first team squad this year. Goalkeeper Christian Olivares, who briefly signed with Omaha last year after Rashid Nuhu took a knock that led to some depth issues, is on thier reserve squad this year. However, St Louis City 2 played a match this past Sunday, and with a lot of their regular players, so my guess is St. Louis City looks more to their first team’s bench than the reserve squad.
As for UO, a very unorthodox USL League One schedule last week has worked in their favor for this match. Omaha played a midweek game on the road in Charlotte, netting a very frustrating, but well earned draw, after which they had a free weekend for recovery. A Tuesday game also allows them to be a little more aggressive with their starting XI, and perhaps their tactics, since they’ll have the extra day of rest following this game than teams are used to from typical Wednesday games. However, St. Louis are a team that can swarm on the attack in the blink of an eye, so just because Omaha are the more rested team doesn’t mean they don’t have to think defense first. But if Omaha are able to handle a potential St. Louis press early, they have the ability to respond in the counter-attack with multiple different looks.
Who Gives a Hoot does have a group in St. Louis for this one, so keep your eyes posted to our social media accounts for a potential live pregame stream with other Union Omaha fans.
Who Gives A Hoot? 