We have to share some difficult news, and there is no good way to do it.
A few hours after Charleston, U.S. Soccer ruled that one of our players was cup-tied. He had appeared in an Open Division qualifying match earlier this year as a guest. He did not know it counted against him. Frankly, neither did we.
This rule is new for 2016. The federation launched its Open Division qualifying tournament this year, and for the first time a player is cup-tied by playing in qualifying, not only in the Open Cup proper. The reasoning is sound — it stops players moving from an eliminated team to one that qualified. We understand why the rule exists. We simply had no way of knowing.
The tie has been awarded to Charleston. We appealed. The appeal was denied.
So we will not be going to EverBank Field. We will not be playing Jacksonville Armada in the third round of the U.S. Open Cup. A team that did not exist eight months ago had earned a tie against an NASL side in an NFL stadium, and now it is gone.
There is one more thing, and we are sorry about it. Charleston were required to stream that match and did not. We had to cancel the watch party minutes before kickoff. The people who most wanted to see it saw nothing at all, and then found out how it ended second hand.
We are not going to dress this up. It hurts.
But go and look at the scoreline again. Two goals from Araujo. Pita saving their first two penalties. Thirty minutes of extra time defended by a group of players who had met each other in April.
Nobody can take that away.
We have a league match in five days. We will see you there.
