US Open Cup draw revealed

I guess it was a good thing I took a nap. I knew the draw came out today, I just didn't think it would take this long.

The bracket can be found here. Game information, with home teams, can be found here.

If you haven't noticed, things have changed slightly this year. Instead of having the tiered entrances for the USL First Division and MLS in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, all non-MLS teams who qualified enter in the 1st round.

The remaining MLS teams (all 8 of them), enter automatically in the third round.

Don't forget the Beckham "lottery". That's what they'd call it in Spain when a lower-division team would play Barcelona or Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey. It also usually meant an insane hike in ticket costs.

A few talking points:

- At least 2 non-USL-1 teams are guaranteed of meeting an MLS team. I'd love to see the Richmond Kickers become one of those teams, they're dominating USL-2 and always play MLS teams tough.

- California's going down in the 1st round. They play at the PDL BYU Cougars.

- I'm not too convinced about the Silverbacks' chances in the 1st or 2nd rounds. Even though the game is at home, Dallas Azzurri is always one of the top USASA teams. But if they do pull it out and Charlotte wins as well, that makes another easy game to catch, regardless of where it's played.

- A Seattle-Portland matchup in the 2nd round would be gold.

Like I told Shoe a few weeks ago, USL Live needs to jump on this. They could really up their number of subscribers if they carried these games, as some of the results are always difficult to find.