‘This is the biggest game we have played.’ The moment for Republic FC and Sac has arrived
Sacramento Republic FC will host Sporting Kansas City Wednesday night before a sold-out Heart Health Park, kicking off one of the most significant sporting events Sacramento has seen in years.
It’s not every day a lower division soccer team like Sac Republic gets a chance to play a Major League Soccer team like Kansas City in a match that actually means something. But if Republic FC wins on Wednesday, it will advance to the finals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the oldest soccer competition in the U.S.
The U.S. Open Cup essentially gives minor league teams a chance to compete against MLS clubs in a knockout tournament. Winners advance, losers are out and the last team standing is awarded an ornate trophy. The first of these competitions, then called the National Challenge Cup, was awarded in 1914.
MLS began playing competitively in 1996 and no lower division team has won the cup since 1999, or even made it to the finals since 2008. Given that Republic was awarded an MLS berth in 2019 at an ill-fated downtown celebration attended by Gov. Gavin Newsom, and given that the billionaire recruited to be Republic FC’s owner made it all for naught when he took his money and dropped out, this game on Wednesday has a deep meaning for Sacramento’s soccer team.
“First it was a high point for the region and then it was a low point,” said Kevin Nagle, the Republic FC owner.
In the last two years since billionaire Ron Burkle left the Republic without the resources to build an MLS-ready stadium or pay the expansion fee to join the biggest soccer league in America, Republic FC has kept playing, even as the MLS dream dimmed.
Nagle and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg have not given up on MLS. But time has not been the friend of Sacramento as other cities have entered the competition to join MLS.
Republic FC kept advancing in the U.S. Open Cup. It beat the San Jose Earthquakes of MLS in a stirring game and then traveled to Los Angeles.
It beat the Galaxy 2-1 to advance to Wednesday’s semifinals.
Nagle said 11,000 tickets for the game sold out in less than three hours. Even though Sporting KC has had a down season in MLS play, it has won the U.S. Open Cup four times.
What would it mean if Republic FC wins on Wednesday?
“This is the biggest game we have played,” Nagle said. Even bigger than 2014 when Republic FC won its league title in its inaugural season in the USL?
Yes, Nagle said.
“A USL team,” he said, “has a chance to beat an MLS team.”
More than 10,000 are converging Wednesday night to hope for good fortune and a win at the Cal Expo fairgrounds. If there is one team that has earned a bit of good news, and a big win, it’s Republic FC.
This story was originally published July 27, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
