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After a one-year hiatus, ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ City SC will return to the U.S. Open Cup for 2025 and will host its first match, in the round of 32, in May.

Sixteen MLS teams, up from eight in 2024, will take part in the Open Cup, the tournament run by U.S. Soccer that combines clubs from all levels of American soccer.

The event was thrown into controversy last year when MLS announced it would send its developmental squads from MLS Next Pro to the tournament instead of its first teams because of schedule congestion. After U.S. Soccer said that wouldn’t be allowed, a compromise was worked out where MLS was represented by some first-tier teams and some developmental teams, while some teams, like City SC, that were competing in the CONCACAF Champions Cup didn’t send any teams at all.

While City SC will play in the U.S. Open Cup, it won’t take part in the Leagues Cup, the competition that in the past two seasons had put all 29 MLS teams in a tournament with the 18 teams from Mexico’s Liga MX. Under a system that will be in place in 2025 and 2026, participation in the Leagues Cup will go to the top nine teams in each conference, which under the current framework are the teams that make the playoffs. City SC missed the playoffs by 10 points.

So it’s possible that if City SC were to make the MLS playoffs this season and advance to the Champions Cup through one of the many available avenues (10 MLS teams are in the Champions Cup this year), it would not be in the 2026 Open Cup, though City2 would be eligible.

Though City SC has taken part in the Open Cup only once, in its inaugural season of 2023, its fan base embraced the tournament. It had one home game in the Open Cup, playing third-division Union Omaha at CityPark, and drew 22,423 fans, a record for the third round of the tournament and the 10th-largest crowd in any round. City SC won 5-1 and then went on the road to Chicago for the next round and lost to the Fire.

But the Open Cup isn’t as popular in other MLS cities and sometimes draws very small crowds, another reason it didn’t want to send its first division teams. MLS experienced a strong backlash to trying to drop out of the Open Cup, and many fans in the City SC Supporters Section boycotted the Leagues Cup games in protest.

The City SC organization wanted to take part in the 2024 Open Cup, but under the deal reached between MLS and U.S. Soccer, teams that qualified for the Champions Cup would not send either their first team or their developmental team to the Open Cup. As fate would have it, City SC went out of the Champions Cup in the first round and could have played in the Open Cup without any schedule difficulty. City SC officials said that, along with the city’s history in the Open Cup, it was a low-cost way for fans who weren’t able to see regular-season MLS games to see the club and the stadium.

Clubs from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ have won 10 Open Cup titles, most recently in 1988 when it was won by the Busch Soccer Club Seniors.

The plan for the next two years is for every MLS club to take part in at least one Cup tournament — the Open Cup (or Canadian Champions for the three Canadian teams), Leagues Cup or CONCACAF Champions Cup — but no more than two. Most teams that don’t send their first team to the Open Cup will instead send their Next Pro team. Only three U.S. MLS clubs won’t send any team to the Open Cup: Colorado, Atlanta and expansion San Diego.

The revamping of the Leagues Cup means that both MLS and Liga MX will send 18 teams to the tournament, which makes for more competition between the leagues, which was what it was supposed to be about to begin with. The league had already eliminated the monthlong midseason Leagues Cup break from its 2025 schedule. Leagues Cup games will instead be played midweek.

The Open Cup begins March 18-20, with matches between amateur teams and lower-division professional teams, including Next Pro squads. MLS teams won’t enter until the round of 32, the fourth round of play. City SC was one of eight teams seeded in the round of 32, assuring it of a home game. Opponents in all rounds are determined by random draw.