The Lamar Hunt US Open Cup

Kansas City Wizards (1-0-0) vs Real Salt Lake (0-0-2)

Tonight the Wizards begin their US Open Cup run out in Salt Lake as they take on Real at 6 pm central time. While there is no TV for the game, Wizards fans can listen to the game on 97.3 FM.

KC comes into the game on a high after defeating almost everyone's pick to win it all this season, DC United. How KC plays this game will be very interesting, this will be the Wizards second game of 5 games in 15 days to start the season. The Wizards will be in Chicago on Saturday for their second MLS game of the season before returning home for the first leg of a home-home run with Toronto FC. It's likely that we'll see plenty of reserves get the run out tonight against RSL. It's hard to guess on the lineup though, as it is currently unknown how Curt Onalfo and the current Wizards organization view the US Open Cup competition wise. Will they take it seriously, or will they use it as just a place to get some reserves some experience. Some things I think we can figure on though, is Eric Kronberg to get the job in net tonight, Ryan Raybould will probably be starting at right back, Will John and Kurt Morsink will be in the midfield, as will Edson Elcock, and Yura Movsisyan will be up top. The rest of the lineup I am not sure of, although it wouldn't surprise me to see one a lot like the lineup used against Evansville.

Salt Lake I would think will have the majority of their starters play in the Open Cup match, as this game is the first of a double header tonight. The other game is Salt Lake vs the Fiji National team. So I would think that Salt Lake will be putting out almost their best 11, although I'm sure a few players will be held back. According to a poster on bigsoccer who was listening to the radio in Salt Lake, Chris Seitz will get his first professional start tonight against the Wizards. Other then that though I don't have enough information on the Salt Lake team to make a good guess at the lineup, as I don't know how John Ellinger plays the US Open Cup either.

Prediction

As I said I expect mostly reserves for the Wizards tonight, and overall my hopes aren't too high at all for this one.
KC - 1 (Movsisyan)
RSL - 2 (C. Brown, Rowland)