FRANKLIN - The Tennessee Rhythm will visit Major League Soccer's Dallas Burn on June 14 in their quest for the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup national soccer championship. Time and site of the match is yet to be determined.
Pairings for the final 32-team field drawn by the U.S. Soccer Federation put Tennessee in the same bracket as Dallas, the defending A-League champion Minnesota Thunder and Mexico S.C., an amateur team representing the U.S. Amateur Soccer Association.
The field has been whittled down from 154 teams originally eligible for the tournament through regional qualifying competitions. In the final brackets are all 12 MLS teams, nine A-League teams, seven D-3 Pro League teams and a total of four teams from the United Soccer Leagues' Premier Development League and the U.S. Amateur Soccer Association.
It is the first time the Tennessee Rhythm (4-5, 17 points) has been in the tournament. Its predecessor squad, the Nashville Metros, beat MLS Kansas City Wizards in Nashville in 1998 before eventually losing to the Burn in Dallas. The Metros also qualified for the tournament in 1995 and 1996.
The Burn (4-8-1) features two of the best-scoring forwards in the league. Jason Kreis currently ranks third in the league in scoring (8 goals, 7 assists: 23 points), while Ariel Graziani is 15th (6 goals, 0 assists: 12 points). Both missed Dallas' last game, a 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Mutiny at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday night. Kreis is currently with the U.S. National Team competing in the U.S. Cup, while Graziani is playing with Ecuador in World Cup qualifying. Their availability for the June 14 game is uncertain.
Dating back to 1914, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup is the oldest cup competition in U.S. soccer and is among the oldest in the world. The single-elimination tournament is open to all affiliated amateur and professional teams in the nation. Cup winners get $100,000, while runners-up receive $50,000.
The U.S. Open Cup was won last year by the A-League's Rochester Raging Rhinos, who defeated four MLS playoff teams in an incredible run to the championship.
