STATESBORO, Ga. – The U.S. Soccer Federation announced Friday the Third Round draws of the 107th edition of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, pairing South Georgia Tormenta FC with the Birmingham Legion on the road at Birmingham-Southern College. Tormenta FC will battle the USL Championship side on Tuesday, April 19, at 8 p.m. ET with the match broadcasted nationally on ESPN+.
Tormenta FC enters round three after a Lowcountry clash against the Charleston Battery, resulting in a 1-0 win and the professional team’s first-ever Third-Round appearance. Battery alums Arthur Bosua and Deshawon Nembhard both returned to Patriots Point today and impressed in front of former teammates and coaches in the team’s long-awaited return to the Open Cup. Bosua scored the game-winning goal off a corner kick, and Nembhard helped keep a clean sheet against the tough Charleston side.
The Birmingham Legion opened its 2022 U.S. Open Cup run on April 7, against Southern States Soccer, who advanced after defeating Georgia Revolution in the First Round. The Legion took down the NPSL team 3-1 at Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Alabama, and will now host Tormenta FC for the Third Round.
In 2022 USL Championship regular-season play, the Legion is currently 0-2-2 with no wins, and Tormenta FC looks to capitalize on its recent success to advance to the fourth round of the open cup for the first time in club history.
South Georgia joins more than two-thirds of participating MLS clubs entering at round three of the national tournament. The 48 Third Round participants were pooled geographically into groups of four or six teams each, with the 31 Second Round winners and 17 Division I clubs distributed as evenly as possible among the groups. Once the geographic groups were established, a random draw determined the pairings within each group, with all Division I sides paired to face a Second Round winner.
In its 107th edition, the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup – U.S. Soccer’s National Championship – has crowned a champion since 1914 every year except in 2020 and 2021. The history-filled tournament is conducted on a single-game-knockout basis and is open to all professional and amateur teams affiliated with U.S. Soccer. In 1999, the oldest ongoing national soccer competition in the United States was renamed to honor American soccer pioneer Lamar Hunt.
The 2022 U.S. Open Cup winner will earn $300,000 in prize money, a berth in the 2023 Concacaf Champions League and have its name engraved on the Dewar Challenge Trophy – one of the oldest nationally-contested trophies in American team sports – now on permanent display at the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Frisco, Texas. The runner-up will earn $100,000, while the team that advances the furthest from each lower division will take home a $25,000 cash prize.
Atlanta United FC is the defending Open Cup champion, having earned the club’s first tournament title thanks to a 2-1 victory against Minnesota United FC on Aug. 27, 2019, in front of an Open Cup Final record 35,709 fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
Ahead of Tormenta FC’s third-round appearance, the team returns home to host reigning USL League One champions Union Omaha on Saturday, April 16 at Erk Russell Park. For more information and media requests, contact Bernadette O’Donnell at bodonnell@tormentafc.com.
