2019 U.S. Open Cup qualification


The 2019 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup tournament proper will feature teams from all five tiers of the men's American soccer pyramid.
Qualification for the 2019 tournament includes local qualifying matches contested by 94 amateur teams scheduled to take place in 2018. One team also qualified by winning the 2018 National Amateur Cup, and other clubs playing in national leagues that are not fully professional qualify based on their results in 2018 league play. Clubs playing in fully professional leagues may enter the tournament proper and bypass the qualification process.

Qualification procedures

The United States Soccer Federation's Open Cup Committee manages both the tournament proper and the local qualification process.
Clubs based in the United States that play in a league that is an organization member of U.S. Soccer are generally eligible to compete for the U.S. Open Cup, if their league includes at least four teams and has a schedule of at least 10 matches for each club.
U.S.-based teams in Division I, II and III professional leagues qualify for the U.S. Open Cup automatically, provided they are eligible. To be eligible, these teams must be members in good standing of their leagues on December 31, 2018, and remain so through the 2019 U.S. Open Cup Final. The league must also remain in operation through the U.S. Open Cup Final. A new Division I, II or III professional league must have its match schedule announced to the public by January 31, 2019, and the first match must be scheduled for no later than seven days before the first scheduled round of the U.S. Open Cup tournament proper that involves the team's division. If a new club joins an existing Division I, II or III league, the league must meet the aforementioned criteria applicable to new leagues in order for the new club to be eligible for the U.S. Open Cup.
A professional team that is majority owned by a higher-level professional team or whose player roster is materially managed by a higher-level professional team is ineligible to participate in the U.S. Open Cup.
Clubs that are below Division III are Open Division teams. To be eligible for the 2019 U.S. Open Cup, an Open Division team must have been a playing member in good standing of its league on August 13, 2018, and remain so through the 2019 U.S. Open Cup Final. The league must have been in operation since no later than July 14, 2018, and remain so until the 2019 U.S. Open Cup Final. A team that started its first season of competition in an existing league must have started its new league's schedule no later than July 14, 2018.
Starting in 2019, the winner of the previous year's National Amateur Cup automatically qualifies for the U.S. Open Cup. The cup winner enters the tournament proper in the first round with the other Open Division clubs.
National leagues may elect to use the results of their previous year's seasons to determine which of their teams qualify for the U.S. Open Cup in lieu of having their teams play local qualifying matches. If a national league so elects, its teams are not eligible to participate in local qualifying. To qualify as a national league, the league must
Both leagues which currently qualify as national leagues, the National Premier Soccer League and USL League Two, elected to use the results of their 2018 seasons to determine their qualifying teams for the 2019 U.S. Open Cup. National leagues determine their own procedures for ranking teams based on 2018 results for the purposes of 2019 U.S. Open Cup qualification.
Eligible Open Division clubs that did not win the National Amateur Cup and are not members of national leagues must have submitted an application to enter local qualifying by August 13, 2018.
Once applications for local qualifying are approved, U.S. Soccer estimates the number of Open Division teams needed in the U.S. Open Cup, based on the anticipated participation of professional teams. One of these slots is allocated to the National Amateur Cup champions. The remainder are allocated among the pool of local qualification teams and the national leagues, based on the relative number of teams in each, resulting in a target number of local qualifiers. The number of rounds of local qualifying and the number of teams receiving byes in the first round of qualifying are then established to set the number of local qualifiers as close as possible to the target number. Byes are distributed randomly and are meant to avoid unnecessary travel but are kept to a minimum to preserve the integrity of the qualification tournament. Once the qualification tournament format has been finalized, the number of local qualifiers becomes fixed, unless a team that qualifies later becomes ineligible. After the December 31, 2018 professional clubs entry application deadline, the final number of Open Division teams needed in the 2019 U.S. Open Cup will become known. From this number, the fixed number of local qualifiers plus one for the National Amateur Cup champion are subtracted to determine the number of slots for clubs from the national leagues. These slots are allocated among the leagues based on their relative numbers of U.S.-based eligible teams.

National league track

National Premier Soccer League

The NPSL ranked the top 30 of its 98 U.S.-based clubs based on results of its 2018 season for the purposes of qualification for the 2019 U.S. Open Cup. The NPSL champion earned the top ranking, and the other finalist is second. The national semifinal loser from the region with the larger number of teams is ranked third, and the remaining national semifinalist is ranked fourth. The four regional final losers are ranked fifth through eighth based on the number of teams in their region, from largest to smallest. The remaining 22 slots in the rankings are allocated among the regions based on their sizes. The total number of slots allocated to each region are South 9, Northeast 8, Midwest 7 and West 6. Since U.S. Soccer has not yet determined how many berths NPSL clubs will be awarded in the U.S. Open Cup, each of the 22 slots available in the rankings for teams that did not reach the region finals are each allocated to a specific region. This ensures that, regardless of the number of berths awarded to NPSL clubs, the berths will have been allocated as fairly as possible, taking into account the relative sizes of the regions. The allocation of the ninth through 30th slots for 2019 qualifying is as follows:
RegionPosition
South9, 12, 15, 19, 22, 25, 28
Northeast10, 14, 17, 21, 26, 29
Midwest11, 16, 20, 24, 30
West13, 18, 23, 27

Starting with the ninth slot, no conference that already has a team in the rankings may have an additional team claim a slot, until every conference in the region has at least one team in the rankings. Ties in the standings are broken using regular-season conference tiebreaker procedures.
TeamExplanation
1Miami FC 2N/ANPSL champion
2N/ANPSL finalist
3Duluth FCN/AMidwest Region champion
4N/AWest Region champion
5Little Rock RangersN/ASouth Region finalist
6New York Cosmos BN/ANortheast Region finalist
7N/AMidwest Region finalist
8Orange County FCN/AWest Region finalist
9Laredo Heat3Representing Lone Star Conference
10N/ARepresenting Mid-Atlantic Conference
11Erie Commodores FCN/ARepresenting East Conference
12Chattanooga FC2Representing Southeast Conference
13El FarolitoN/ARepresenting Golden Gate Conference
14Junior Lone Star FC2.4Northeast Region #4 club
15Midland-Odessa Sockers FC2.2South Region #5 club
16Minneapolis City SC2.4Midwest Region #4 club
17Brooklyn Italians2.2Northeast Region #5 club
18ASC San Diego2.3West Region #4 club
192.2South Region #6 club
20Cleveland SC2Midwest Region #5 club
21West Chester United SC2.1Northeast Region #6 club
22Houston Dutch Lions FC2.1South Region #7 club
232.2West Region #5 club
24Grand Rapids FC1.9Midwest Region #6 club
25Fort Worth Vaqueros FC2South Region #8 club
26Hartford City FC1.9Northeast Region #7 club
27Spokane SC Shadow2.2West Region #6 club
28Jacksonville Armada FC2South Region #9 club
291.9Northeast Region #8 club
29Northern Virginia United FC1.9Northeast Region #8 club
30Rochester Lancers1.8Midwest Region #7 club

Notes:

USL League Two

USL League Two elected to use the results of the 2018 PDL regular season to rank its 69 U.S.-based teams for the purposes of qualification for the 2019 U.S. Open Cup. The highest placing teams from each division, provided that they are American, are ranked first in order of points. The remaining teams are then ranked based on points regardless of division. The 2018 PDL regular-season standings tiebreaker system is invoked when needed. The rankings of the USL League Two teams for 2019 U.S. Open Cup qualification are shown in the table below.
TeamPointsExplanation
1Des Moines Menace40Heartland Division champion
2Reading United AC38Mid Atlantic Division champion
337Southwest Division champion
4South Georgia Tormenta FC36Deep South Division champion
5SIMA Águilas32Southeast Division champion
6Brazos Valley Cavalry F.C.30Mid South Division champion
7Black Rock FC30Northeast Division champion
8Myrtle Beach Mutiny28South Atlantic Division champion
9Colorado Rapids U-2328Mountain Division champion
10Dayton Dutch Lions27Great Lakes Division champion
11New York Red Bulls U-2331
1230
13Lakeland Tropics30
14OKC Energy U2328
15Long Island Rough Riders28
16Mississippi Brilla28
17Ocean City Nor'easters27
18Lansing United26
1925
20SC United Bantams24
21GPS Portland Phoenix24
22Chicago FC United23
23North Carolina FC U2323
24Ventura County Fusion22
25Michigan Bucks22
26Cincinnati Dutch Lions22
27Western Mass Pioneers22
28AHFC Royals21
29Seattle Sounders FC U-2321
30Orange County SC U-2321
31St. Louis Lions20
32Corpus Christi FC20
33Santa Cruz Breakers FC20
34Fresno FC U-2320
35Kaw Valley FC20
36IMG Academy Bradenton20
37Lane United FC20
38Birmingham Hammers19
39Texas United18
4018
41Tri-Cities Otters17
4217
43Lionsbridge FC17
44San Francisco City FC16
4516
46San Francisco Glens16
47Peachtree City MOBA16
48Albuquerque Sol FC16
49Colorado Pride Switchbacks U2315
50West Virginia Chaos15
51San Diego Zest FC14
52Southern California Seahorses13
53Weston FC13
5413
55Charlotte Eagles13
56Tobacco Road FC13
57Westchester Flames13
58Next Academy Palm Beach12
59Ogden City SC12
60Portland Timbers U2311
61Carolina Dynamo11
62Seacoast United Phantoms10
63Houston FC10
649
65North County United8
66Memphis City FC6
67Evergreen FC5
68Lehigh Valley United4
69Derby City Rovers1

Notes:

National Amateur Cup

defeated West Chester United, 2–0, to win the 2018 National Amateur Cup and qualify for the 2019 U.S. Open Cup. The seven winners of the fourth round of local qualifying will join them as the eight Open Division teams in the tournament proper.

Local qualifying

U.S. Soccer originally announced that 95 teams would participate in local qualifying. However, Naples United FC 2 was disqualified, because the club was not affiliated with the U.S. Specialty Sports Association by the deadline for local amateur sides to participate in sanctioned league competition.
Four rounds of local qualifying matches will result in 7 clubs advancing to the tournament proper.

First qualifying round

The first qualifying round matches were scheduled to be played on September 22 and 23. Some matches were played on later dates due to weather delays.

Northeast Region

Mid-Atlantic Region

Received bye to second round of qualification:
Received bye to second round of qualification:
Notes:
Received bye to second round of qualification:
Received bye to second round of qualification:
Notes:
Received bye to second round of qualification:
Received bye to second round of qualification:
The second qualifying round matches were played on October 20 and 21, with the exception of one that was postponed until November 11, due to flooding.

Northeast Region

Mid-Atlantic Region

Notes:

Southeast Region

Central Region

Notes:

Mountain Region

Southern California Region

West Region

Third qualifying round

The third qualifying round matches were played on November 17 and 18. Three matches were postponed to a later date. One match was suspended while the two teams were tied, and will be replayed January 16.

Northeast Region

Mid-Atlantic Region

Southeast Region

Central Region

Mountain Region

Southern California Region

Notes:

West Region

Fourth qualifying round

The fourth qualifying round matches were played on April 6 and 7. The game between Florida Soccer Soldiers and America Soccer Club, originally scheduled for April 7, was cancelled and awarded to Florida after America SC was disqualified from the tournament for leaving the United Premier Soccer League.

Northeast Region

Mid-Atlantic Region

Southeast Region

Central Region

Mountain Region

Southern California Region

West Region

Top goalscorers