Who Are Those Guys? Little Rock Rangers edition

Yesterday the Birmingham Legion and seven other Championship clubs learned their opponents in the first round of the US Open Cup.

First off, the Legion frankly got stiffed by the league and US Soccer on this one. Under normal circumstances, the eight non-playoff teams from the previous season would have been selected for this round. Obviously, that would include the Three Sparks, but the situation was complicated by the self-promotion of Lexington SC to the Championship this year. So one team would get a pass. That was complicated by the closure of Memphis 901 in the West, which also meant one Eastern team would move to the West. It could be argued that this would be the Legion in both cases. The Three Sparks were the team with the best regular season record among all non-playoff teams and are also the most westerly of the Eastern teams. But no, the league decided that Lexington would be dropped into the Western Conference. That meant San Antonio got the pass despite earning 6 fewer points than Birmingham, 5 fewer than Hartford Athletic and 3 fewer than Loudoun United.

Oh well. So the Legion is the strongest Championship team in this round. Note also that the remaining Championship teams don’t enter until the 3rd round so this means the Legion gets potentially two extra games. Other teams in the first and second rounds are all from lower divisions – there are 64 teams in all – and half are not even fully professional. Only the 14 USL League One teams and 10 MLS Next Pro teams are also such.

Technically, that makes the Legion the highest seed in these two rounds, which is good. On the other hand, the Three Sparks are in the only bracket with two Championship teams, the other being Lexington, who are going to be a much stronger team than last year’s roster, which didn’t even make the playoffs. But that’s a concern for later on. To get to Lexington (or its first round opponent) the Legion has to get past Little Rock Rangers from Arkansas.

You may be excused for not knowing they are. The club was formed in 2016 and initially played in the National Premier Soccer League but moved up to USL League Two in 2021. The team is composed entirely of college and high-school age players and is fully amateur. The Rangers have played in the US Open Cup just once, in 2019, but lost in the first round after playing NTX Rayados of Texas to a 2-2 extra-time draw and then going 2-4 in the shootout. Last year’s squad was pretty impressive, losing just one game all year, that being the second game of the playoffs. In the regular season they went 9-3-0 and 6-0-0 at home.

Home field may however not be that much of an advantage. The Rangers normally play at War Memorial Stadium, which is even bigger than Protective Stadium at 54,000 capacity. However, the field is barely wide enough for football (the stadium’s primary use) and does not comply with Open Cup size requirements. As a result the game will be played at Episcopal Collegiate School which has only two smallish bleachers. Its field is also not exactly the biggest – it fits entirely inside a running track and looks to be about 64 yards wide (the 10-yard corner marks are inside the 18-yard box).

Expect to see a relatively youthful Legion side in this game. My guess is Fernando Delgado will get the start in goal. Ramix Hamouda is a lock in defense. It should be fun. The game will be played Wednesday, March 19th at 7:00pm (TV details to come). It will in fact be the Legion’s first road game of the year (the first league road fixture is the following Saturday in Detroit).

By the way, Lexington’s opponent (who they play at home) is Southern Indiana Guardians FC of the United Premier Soccer League who finished 3rd this past fall in the league’s Ohio division. Huh?