2009 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Qualification
This page details the qualification process for the 2009 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
The tournament proper features teams from the top five levels of the American Soccer Pyramid. These five levels, namely Major League Soccer, the United Soccer Leagues (First Division, Second Division, and Premier Development League), and the United States Adult Soccer Association, each have their own separate qualification process to trim their ranks down to their final eight team delegations in the months leading up to the start of the tournament proper. It is expected that eight teams from each level will compete in the tournament proper, with the eight clubs from MLS receiving byes into the Third Round.
The qualifying process for MLS will take the form of an eight-team play-off tournament. The top six finishers, regardless of conference, in 2008 were given six of the berths into the Third Round. The eight remaining U.S.-based clubs will compete for the final two berths via a playoff.
Continuing the format of recent seasons, no qualification process will be needed for USL-1 and USL-2 as each level has exactly eight U.S.-based clubs for the 2009 season. The PDL has announced that selected early season games will again double as qualifying matches, as they had in recent years. Each conference will be given two berths that will be awarded to the best team in each division.
The qualifying process for the USASA will take the form of four regional tournaments. Assuming the continuation of recent seasons' format, the two finalists in each region will be awarded berths.
Read more about 2009 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Qualification: Tier 2: USL-1 and Tier 3: USL-2, Tier 4: USL Premier Development League (PDL), See Also
Famous quotes containing the words hunt, open and/or cup:
“O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather.”
—Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885)
“Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the art of creation can be accomplished. Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated. The whole of the mind must lie wide open if we are to get the sense that the writer is communicating his experience with perfect fullness.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Sisters define their rivalry in terms of competition for the gold cup of parental love. It is never perceived as a cup which runneth over, rather a finite vessel from which the more one sister drinks, the less is left for the others.”
—Elizabeth Fishel (20th century)