Just like Sporting Kansas City’s 2017 season, competing in the MLS regular season and the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup tournament opens up storylines that reveal and determine a team’s season. One competition often begets the other, especially when a team makes it to the U.S. Open Cup final like Kansas City has in 2004, 2012, 2015, and now 2017.
And it all began on September 22, 2004, in a 1-0 overtime, golden-goal victory over the Chicago Fire at the then Wizards home ground of Arrowhead Stadium.
Team
Speaking to me in early September of 2004, some two weeks before the U.