Orlando City to Face Miami United FC in U.S. Open Cup

Orlando City will travel to Miami to play Miami United FC in the fourth round of the U.S. Open Cup on June 6 in Ted Hendricks Stadium in Hialeah, FL. The match is set for a 7:30 p.m. EST kickoff. According to Orlando Sentinel’s Jordan Culver, Orlando City did not apply to host the game, citing concerns with the Pride and City.

Although this is the fourth round of the tournament, this is the first round for MLS teams. Miami United, on the other hand, joined in the first round. The NPSL team beat FC Kendall, 5-1 in the first round. They then played against Miami FC 2 and won, 3-1, and beat the Jacksonville Armada, 2-0 in the third round.

Orlando City is 10-7-1 all-time in the U.S. Open Cup, and has never gotten farther than the quarterfinals, which it did in 2013 and 2015. The Chicago Fire eliminated Orlando in both quarterfinals. Last season, a hat trick by current Lion Stefano Pinho — then with Miami FC — eliminated the Lions in their first game of their tournament on a night that OCSC Head Coach Jason Kreis described as “the most disappointing night I’ve had since I’ve been here with Orlando.”

The fact that Orlando City chose not to apply to host is not surprising. Historically, Orlando City has a terrible turnout to U.S. Open Cup matches. The 2015 match saw over 13,000 fans attend a 2-0 win against the Columbus Crew but that is an outlier and the next highest attendance was last year’s loss that saw a mere 5,838 fans.

This will be a midweek game and Orlando travels to New York City and Vancouver on the Saturday before and after. Because of the tight travel window and the fact it is an early round game, Kreis will likely roll out a large amount of bench players and use the squad depth. The winner of this match will be put into a random drawing on June 7, divided into groups of four by geography, to determine the Round of 16 match-up.

Some other matches in this round are:

• Charleston Battery at Atlanta United on June 6.
• Sporting Kansas City at Real Salt Lake on June 6.
• Chicago Fire at Columbus Crew on June 6.
• New York City at New York Red Bulls on June 6.
• FC Cincinnati at Minnesota United on June 6.
• New England Revolution at Louisville City FC on June 5.