World Cup group stage qualifiers in 2010 and 2011 Copa Centroamericana (Central American Cup) champions, Honduras is currently ranked 62nd in the world by FIFA. With Wigan Athletic's Maynor Figueroa...

Featured image: The Bethlehem Steel FC victory float after winning their second US Open Cup, then known as the National Challenge Cup, on May 6, 1916. (Photo: (Photo: University Archives & Special Collections Department, Lovejoy Library, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville)

Tuesday night will be the first time that the Philadelphia Union has hosted a US Open Cup match.

Philadelphia-area teams were an ever-present force in the American Cup throughout the 1910s. From 1910 through 1920, Philadelphia-area teams would appear in nine American Cup finals, winning the final six times.

1913 marked the first time the American Cup final was held in Philadelphia. And, as the Fates would have it, a Philadelphia team, Tacony FC, who had won the tournament in 1910, would be competing in the final.

When, a year after it had won the American Cup, Tacony FC traveled to St. Louis in 1911, they came back from two goals down to draw 4–4 with St. Louis champion St. Leos in what newspapers called a "blue ribbon" match to decide the "national championship." With the draw, talk of a national champion ended.

When Tacony FC traveled to St. Louis in December of 1911 in one of the first tours pitting the largely immigrant-based East Coast teams against the largely native-born teams from the West, they had lost only three games in two years. The confidence they felt on departure proved to be premature and they returned to Philadelphia with a 4–4 draw against St.

The Bethlehem Steel FC tour to St. Louis in December of 1916 for the unofficial title of "Champions of America" was not the first time a Philadelphia-area team had made a trip out West. Five years before, Tacony FC, the winners of the American Football Association's American Cup tournament in 1910 and a semifinalist in the tournament in 1911, had made the same trip in what would be the first of a series of exhibition matches between St.

Featured image: Courtesy Dan Morrison and bethlehemsteelsoccer.org

The 1913-14 season saw the launch of the National Challenge Cup, the competition now known as the US Open Cup, by the recently founded United States Football Association. While the National Challenge Cup would quickly become the singular competition for the title of Champion of the United States, the American Cup tournament had been founded in 1885 by the American Football Association, the first soccer governing body in America.

Featured image: Courtesy of Dan Morrison and bethlehemsteelsoccer.org

Against the expectation of many in the US, the United States Football Association's first international tour in Scandinavia in the summer of 1916 had been a great success. The cash-strapped USFA had come out of the trip in the black—the Swedish FA had paid for the tour thanks to the backing of a leading Swedish newspaper—and the team had performed well to garner a 3–1–2 record despite having been put together only days before departure to Europe without the benefit of tryouts.

On June 9, 1916, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, "Word was received in this city yesterday that all arrangements had been completed for an All-American soccer team to tour Sweden and Norway in July. The Sweden Football Association, through its secretary, C.L. Kornerup, has cabled a guarantee of $4000 to cover the expenses of the trip.

By 1916, exhibition soccer games on Christmas Day were a Philadelphia tradition that dated back at least to the inaugural season of the city's first organized league, the Pennsylvania Football Union, in 1889. As was the case then, the exhibition game in 1916 took place at the grounds of one of Philadelphia's professional baseball teams, this time at the Phillies Ball Park.

The recent release of the designs for the new Philadelphia Union home and away kits got me thinking about the evolution of the kit designs of other teams in Philadelphia soccer history. Today, the regular release of new jerseys is an important part of the marketing of a professional team, not to mention a lucrative source of revenue.

Featured image: Bethlehem Steel in 1915 displaying their already impressive trophy collection. They would add their first US Open Cup, then known as the National Challenge Cup, on May 3, 1915 when they defeated Brooklyn Celtic in the final.. (Photo: Courtesy of Dan Morrison.)

Tuesday night will mark the 98th edition of the US Open Cup.

The Costa Rica Lotto 2011/12 home and away kits were launched on Tuesday ahead of Los Ticos 2011 Copa Centroamericana (Central American Cup) run in Panama. The red home kit is expected to make its debut on the field when Costa Rica meets Honduras on Friday in a decisive Group B match at El Estadio [.

La Federación Nacional de Fútbol de Guatemala has unveiled the Guatemala Umbro 2011/12 home and away jerseys. Los Chapines have signed a deal with the UK-based Nike subsidiary after wearing PUMA for the past few years. The Guatemala 2011/12 kits will be worn for the first time during the upcoming Copa Centroamericana (The Central American Cup) in [.

At the beginning of the 1909-1910 Pennsylvania League season, Kensington's Hibernians, the reining league champs, seemed a sure bet to repeat as champions. But the Tacony team had other ideas. Led by what the Philadelphia Inquirer described as "the splendid half-back line" of team captain Hector McDonald, former Scotland junior international Robert Morrison, and Percy Potts, the Tacony team defeated the Hibs 2-0 on October 23, 1909.