Seattle and U.S. Open Cup: Deserving champs, but a flawed process

For the record, the scene at CenturyLink Field on Wednesday was everything you'd want, a cauldron of mean green, awash in Open Cup frenzy. And also for the record, Seattle is a deserving Open Cup champ, a club that takes the competition seriously and now has solid historical evidence to prove it. (The Sounders won their third consecutive Open Cup crown, the first side in 40 years to do so.