Country United States Runners-up D.C. United Start date 2009 Teams 40 Matches played 39 | Defending champions D.C. United Champion Seattle Sounders FC End date September 2, 2009 Goals scored 107 | |
Champions Seattle Sounders FC (1st title) Top goal scorer(s) Taiwo Atieno
Bryan Kanu
Stephen King
Sébastien Le Toux
Keita Mandjou
Randi Patterson
Melvin Tarley
(3 goals each) People also search for 2008 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup | ||
The 2009 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup was the 96th edition of the USSF's annual national soccer championship, running from June through early September.
Contents
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. The eight MLS clubs receive byes into the third round, while the remaining 32 teams play in the first two round with brackets influenced by geography.
Seattle Sounders FC defeated defending-champion D.C. United 2-1 in the final at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. Both clubs had started in the MLS qualification tourney, and ended up playing 6 matches each.
Matchdays
Match pairings were announced on May 27.
Teams
As in the previous tournament, forty teams qualified to the tournament. The qualifying process for MLS took 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 competed for the final two berths via a playoff.
Continuing the format of recent seasons, no qualification process was needed for USL-1 and USL-2 as each level has exactly eight U.S.-based clubs for the 2009 season. The PDL announced that four selected early season games will again double as qualifying matches, as they had in recent years. Each division received a berth, since there are eight divisions instead of the ten that existed in 2008. The qualifying process for the USASA took the form of four regional tournaments, with the two finalists in each region being awarded berths.
Open Cup bracket
Second Round winners advance to play one of 8 clubs in 16-team knockout tournament
Home teams listed on top of bracket
Schedule
Note: Scorelines use the standard U.S. convention of placing the home team on the right-hand side of box scores.