It’s endured two world wars (actual) and the “soccer wars” (administrative) of the 1920s and ‘30s, plus a depression and then decades of public indifference. It even survived a previous pandemic—the Spanish flu of 1918-19 that killed more than half a million people in the USA and many more around the globe.
Through more than a century of obstacles, the U.S. Open Cup has represented American soccer’s sturdiest, deepest stake in the soil. The sport’s history here can be charted via its list of winners. And the tournament’s durability should serve as an unabashed point of pride. Launched in 1913, the Open Cup is the longest continuously contested annual sports competition in the country and, incredibly, the second-oldest on the planet.