One Day Rest

The Wizards get back to action on Tuesday in Minnesota when they take on the Thunder in the third round of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. The Thunder has struggled this season, and sit at the bottom of the USL-1 table with a 1-7-4 record, 3 points behind Cleveland who is one spot above them in the table. They've only scored 10 goals in all of league play. On Saturday the Thunder lost at home to the Rochester Rhinos 2-1. In their previous US Open Cup game, they won 4-0 over Chicago Fire PDL.

With the first team playing the majority of the minutes against Santos yesterday in the SuperLiga, it's easy to assume that the majority of the roster for the game tomorrow will be the Swope Park Rangers. With the injuries and call ups the Wizards are dealing with right now, though, they'll need to have probably 2 players that got signifigant minutes yesterday play tomorrow night. The Wizards will still be without Adam Cristman and Kevin Souter due to their injuries, while it appears Chance Myers may be able to at least make the bench for the first time this season. Combine this with Jimmy Conrad, Davy Arnaud, and Roger Espinoza being called up for the Gold Cup and we'll likely see a lineup similar to this tomorrow in Minnesota.

Pardo
Harrington - Leathers - McKenzie - Marquess
Morsink
Watson - Zusi - Gomez
Kraus - Thompson

Key Match Up - Rauwshan McKenzie vs Thunder forward - McKenzie was beaten badly yesterday against Santos, especially when he became the lone center back. Minnesota's forwards, specifically someone like Melvin Tarley will be licking their lips after seeing the video of the Santos game.

PREDICTION - The good news is that the Thunder aren't really good, so the Rangers may have a good shot at taking down their USL-1 foe. The bad news is that USL-1 sides always seem to show up against MLS teams in the US Open Cup. The Thunder defeated the Wizards in the 2005 Open Cup, while the Wizards defeated the Thunder earlier this season in a preseason friendly. Hopefully the reserves will show up looking to impress, but I'm not incredibly optismistc about the game tomorrow.

KC - 1 (Zusi)
MN - 1
MN advances on PKs