Tonight there will be held the longest running US soccer tradition, the US Open Cup Final. Almost 100 years of soccer tradition and almost no one knows about it or even cares. I really started thinking about the US open cup because of the fact that a lot of supporters from our hated rival like to point out that they have won the thing twice now and are in the final tonight.

Round 2 results were delayed a day thanks to a lightning storm in Madison which forced the Chicago Fire PDL team and the Madison 56ers to replay their match this afternoon. The Fire win continues the trend this tournament of a lack of upsets. The only team that can plausibly claim to have beaten a team in the higher division is USASA's New York Pancyprian Freedoms, who beat the NPSL's Brooklyn Italians in round one.

NEW YORK, NY Five more amateur teams will earn berths into the US Open Cup tournament this year. The PDL's allotment was raised to nine from eight and the NPSL will receive four automatic berths, the first time since 2003 that teams from that fourth-division league will gain automatic entry. NPSL teams used to [.

Just after US Soccer announced the return of the provisional sanctioning of division two to the NASL and suspended them for US Open Cup play this season on Valentine's Day, three days later Soccer House in Chicago announced the structure and schedule for the 2011 edition of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.

Time to ditch the MLS qualifying bracket in the US Open Cup.

I've had this thought bubbling for a while. How on earth can we improve the US Open Cup? I know I've mentioned it in the past and today seemed like a good day to bring it back up. With the changes that have gone on in US Soccer over the last year or so with the NASL-USL split and the ever growing MLS it seems like a perfect time to revamp the Cup.