We have arrived at knockout soccer. Rhode Island FC and Birmingham Legion meet Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the Jägermeister Cup. With the teams currently 8th and 11th in the Eastern Conference respectively, this tournament may end up providing the only knockout game(s) either team play. As a big fan of cup competitions, I can’t wait to get into this one. So without further ado……

What is this competition again?

The USL continued its effort to mimic some of what they do across the pond by adding a league cup of their own. It even got a drink sponsor just like their Carabao Cup, although Jägermeister is a significantly better beverage than that gross energy drink. The tournament only included USL League One teams in its inaugural year in 2024, but this year included all 38 teams from the USL Championship and League One. Teams were split into 6 groups, divided by region. The 6 group winners and next best 2 teams advanced into the knockout round, where we find ourselves now.

How did we get here?

For Rhode Island FC, they advanced out of group 4 as winners:

Looking back on these 4 results, the most important one was probably the 1-0 win at Pittsburgh on matchday 2. Of course, this big wins over USL League One opponents Westchester SC and Portland Hearts of Pine helped as well, but the win over Pittsburgh put the team in prime position to finish top of the group. The draw and subsequent loss on penalties to Hartford was a tough pill to swallow, but once the match finished in a draw after 90 minutes, the penalties were largely irrelevant to RIFC as they had topped the group at that point.

As for Birmingham Legion, they made it through as one of the two wild card teams:

Similar to RIFC, Birmingham took down both of their League One opponents. They also got a nice win over FC Tulsa, who are currently top of the Western Conference. The big result here though was the draw and subsequent loss on penalties to Indy Eleven. Those PKs ended up deciding the group, as Indy Eleven finished first with 11 points and Birmingham 2nd on 10 points. Still, the 10 points were enough to put them into the quarterfinals as a wild card along with Hartford Athletic.

Prior Meetings

RIFC and Birmingham Legion have already met twice this season in the league. The first meeting was in Birmingham back in May. RIFC took that one 1-0, with an early Maxi Rodriguez goal and a late first half red card for Birmingham being the decisive moments.

The second meeting was at Centreville Bank Stadium on July 5th. The match ended in a 1-1 draw, with Ronaldo Damus getting on the score sheet for Birmingham in the 27th minute and Noah Fuson equalizing just before halftime for RIFC.

Expectations

RIFC come into this game after a nice 10 days off. Their last two results were a win over Detroit City FC 1-0 and a draw with Loudoun United 0-0 on August 6th and 9th respectively. The positive to come out of those games was a more well defined style of play. It remains to be seen if this can continue through the rest of the year and if it will result in the ball actually being put in the back of the net. The hope here is that the time off has given the players time to refresh and the team some time to work on the progressive passing and movement that they’ll need for this style of play to succeed.

Storylines

• Lee in goal?
  • The assumption heading into this game from me is that Jackson Lee is going to get the start. Khano recently went out of his way to praise Jackson when discussing the return of Koke Vegas and has also said on record that Jackson is the team’s cup goalkeeper. I can see an argument for starting Koke here, as barring injury he should be the goalkeeper going forward this season. But I think it would be really harsh on Jackson Lee to take him out at this point
• Corcoran vs former club
  • New loan signing Matthew Corcoran will likely take the field Wednesday night against his former team from Birmingham. After starting with the youth academy for FC Dallas, Corcoran made a name for himself with Birmingham Legion when he debuted for them at age 16 in May of 2022
• Getting Busy
  • I’m most interested in seeing Dwayne “Busy” Atkinson on Wednesday night. We got to see a glimpse of him against Loudoun and showed flashes of his ability going forward. It’ll be interesting to see if he gets a start here as the extra time off should give him more time to integrate into the team

Birmingham come into this game having had the same break as RIFC, with their last game also coming on August 9th. That was a 4-1 loss at home to Hartford that saw 3 goals come in 2nd half stoppage time. Hartford were up 2-0 at halftime and scored their other two goals in the 91st and 93rd minutes before Birmingham scored a consolation goal in the 95th.

As far as expectations go, it’s been an extremely disappointing season for Birmingham Legion. Similar to RIFC, they were projected to finish pretty high up in the Eastern Conference heading into the season. The signings of Danny Trejo and Ronaldo Damus to bolster the attack and the transfer of Stephen Turnbull from RIFC looked to set the team up for success. But it never came together and manager Tommy Soehn was let go on April 9th. The team brought in former Sacramento Republic manager Mark Briggs, but things haven’t really improved. Trejo was also shipped out to Oakland Roots last week.

Storylines

• Turnbull vs former club
  • Stephen Turnbull looked fantastic when he got the start against RIFC the last time these two teams met. It was great to see him back in RI but we had hoped his return to the Ocean State wouldn’t also come with a strong performance on the field. I think he’ll just as motivated this time around and will be one to watch if he gets the start
• Annoying Enzo
  • You have to respect Enzo Martinez for his long career in the USL. But it needs to be said that he’s one of the most annoying players to come up against. Enzo complains to the ref after every foul, either to say it shouldn’t have been a foul on his side or that it should be a yellow for his opponents. And although his numbers have dropped this year with just 3 goals and 2 assists in all competitions, he’s still a player to watch Wednesday night, if only for his on field antics

I have to go with an RIFC win here. Maybe it’s hopeless optimism. But I do think there are reasons to think RIFC gets this done. I’ll throw out a prediction of a JJ Williams goal assisted by Dwayne Atkinson and a Maxi Rodriguez goal. Stephen Turnbull will be involved in some way for Birmingham’s goal.

Tide Talk Live shows are back! We’re looking forward to meeting up with everyone at High Motor for a preview of this quarterfinal matchup before marching over to Tidewater. It promises to be a great time in lieu of the normal M7 tailgate. Matt and Ryan have done some great preparation for this one and I can’t wait to see everyone there. Until then, all that’s left to say is: UP THE TIDE!