Charlotte FC faces New York Red Bulls in U.S. Open Cup tonight. What to know
Charlotte FC will face its toughest test yet in the U.S. Open Cup, playing its first Major League Soccer opponent in the U.S. Soccer-organized tournament on Wednesday at 8 p.m. The match will stream on ESPN+ with no local blackouts.
The MLS expansion squad is set to play the New York Red Bulls at MSU Soccer Park in Montclair, New Jersey, a college soccer stadium that seats 5,000 people.
“I don’t think it’s an advantage or disadvantage for either team,” Charlotte FC head coach Miguel Ángel Ramírez said this week in Spanish of the match being hosted at the smaller stadium rather than the Red Bulls’ venue in Harrison, N.J., due to a conflicting event. “Red Bulls will play the same regardless, and we will do the same. I don’t see it as a good or bad change.”
In its latest match of the tournament, Charlotte FC pushed for a dominant 5-1 defeat of the Richmond Kickers, a USL League One side team that struggled to find the net against its higher-level opponent.
The Red Bulls, who sit fifth in the Eastern Conference in the MLS standings (5-3-5), have gone undefeated in the last two rounds to advance to the Round of 16. Charlotte has similarly gone undefeated in the tournament so far to advance, but the team has only played USL League One teams up to this point, first against the Greenville Triumph (2-1) followed by the Kickers. The Red Bulls beat MLS club D.C. United 3-0 in the Round of 32 after topping USL Championship team Hartford Athletic.
Charlotte FC’s lineup so far in the Open Cup games have featured traditional non-starters, as the team has faced lower-division opponents, but Wednesday’s match could mark a switch. Charlotte FC (5-7-1 in the MLS standings) sits seventh in the Eastern Conference and has not yet played the Red Bulls in league competition.
“They are a team with very skillful legs, young, who don’t stop running or applying pressure,” Ramírez said. “They take a lot of risk playing up top. ... They change their system depending on the matchup, but they don’t change their behaviors. ... They are very aggressive in their defense and very direct.”
Ramírez also answered a question this week about the status of forward Vinicius Mello, who has not played a match with the team due to a left foot surgery and subsequent recovery process. Mello recently began working into the team’s training sessions, but Ramírez indicated Tuesday that there’s been a setback in his recovery.
“Vini suffered an injury last week, a small fracture in the screw inside his bone,” Ramírez said in Spanish. “So he will be out for a long time. He has a lot of bad luck with that injury. It is very complicated.”
Charlotte FC recently added 20-year-old Colombian winger Kerwin Vargas, who made his debut in Charlotte’s match on Sunday during a 2-1 win at home over Vancouver, and he could again be an option on Wednesday.
The winner of the matchup will host the the winner of the match between New York City FC and the New England Revolution in the quarterfinals on June 21 or 22. After its midweek Open Cup game, Charlotte FC plays the Seattle Sounders in Seattle on Sunday at 9:30 p.m.
