We made it to Saturday, which means the Philadelphia Union are in my birth state of Kansas to play Peter Vermes and Sporting Kansas City in MLS play. The Union are coming off a 2-2 draw at home to Chicago Fire and will look to spoil SKC’s home opener. SKC has been through some changes. Veterans Graham Zusi and Roger Espinoza - both in the league the Union’s inaugural season - have both hung up the boots but their stadium will be another test for the fixture heavy start of the season for the U.

In the email today:

1. ✈️ Union In Kansas for SKC Home Opener

The Philadelphia Union’s early season thicket of fixtures continues on Saturday with the club’s first MLS road trip to Sporting Kansas City, with kickoff set for 8:30 p.m. ET at Children’s Mercy Park. The match will be free to stream on Apple TV.

The Union drew in the league opener last week, 2-2, at home to the Chicago Fire, thanks to a late equalizer from Daniel Gazdag .Perhaps more importantly, the U also advanced to the Round of 16 of the Concacaf Champions Cup after a draining two-legged tie against Saprissa from Costa Rica.

The Union needed 120 minutes in the second leg at home on Tuesday to finish the job, including playing all of extra time down to 10 men and a scrappy set piece winner from Mikael Uhre.

Sporting Kansas City opened the season with a 1-1 draw away to the Houston Dynamo, in a rematch of last season’s Western Conference semifinal that Houston won. Houston was dealing with its own CCC clog, but dominated possession and doubled up SKC on shots –– Erik Thommy scored a nice goal against the run of play to give the visitors a 1-0 lead in the 60th minute that was given back less than 10 minutes later. The match finished at 1.0-0.2 xG in favor of Houston.

Sporting Kansas City will look to find its first win of the season in its home debut against a Union side with three matches under its belt already and an eye already on the next CCC test, a first leg at Pachuca on Tuesday. Pachuca sits in third place just over halfway through the Liga MX Clausara.

So, the Union are in a tricky spot against a hungry, playoff-caliber team making its home debut.

“Going to Kansas City is always very, very difficult,” said Jim Curtin in his pre-match press conference on Friday. “Peter Vermes does an incredible job with his group, being tough to play against, having [not] gone to the stadium in quite some time. And to have to go there in a home opener is a real challenge.”

The recurring question of how much Curtin and his staff will rotate to juggle early season MLS with continental competition rears its head again.

“We’ll put a group on the field that will go there to try and get a point or three and we know that task will be tough,” continued Curtin. “Will have to be almost perfect on the day to get that done.”

-Amit Maliik

2. 🏆 No U.S. Open Cup for the Philadelphia Union

As anticipated, the Philadelphia Union will not participate in the 2024 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup but two local teams – West Chester United and Vereinigung Erzgebirge – will represent the area in American soccer’s oldest competition.

The format for the competition, officially announced by U.S. Soccer on Friday, will include 96 teams across the amateur and professional ranks but will include just eight MLS teams this time around.

It’s partially a win for the MLS strategy of wanting little to do with anything they don’t themselves control but will still feature a wide range of teams and markets, including 11 MLS Next Pro teams.

The Philadelphia Union have made the Open Cup final three times but with Concacaf Champions Cup and the Leagues Cup (unfortunately) taking priority their involvement in the competition has been limited to one-and-done road games the last couple years.

Still, the competition does suffer not having full participation.

A USL Championship team winning will be looked at differently just as an MLS winner will be deemed more the best of the rest than a rightful cup winner. The rebuttal to that will still be DC United since they were a bottom of the table team that won the Open Cup in 2013, however.

Union head coach Jim Curtin, who won the competition as a player and has been part of three finals, was asked about the Open Cup prior to the announcement during a press conference on Friday.

“You guys know my love for the competition, it’s a great one,” Curtin said. “I don’t think that the solution that comes out for this season will be necessarily the solution for ever that’s kinda all I can say about that without getting in trouble or something.”

The Union and Union II, along with the first and second teams of other Concacaf Champions Cup teams were excluded from the competition. Next Pro teams not excluded were determined based on last year’s standings.

One benefit of the new format is that the first round will feature amateur teams playing a professional side in all 32 matches for the first time. That means both West Chester and VE will play a professional side instead of matching up against each other in the first round. That’s definitely a win for local soccer.

West Chester United will host Maryland Bobcats on March 19 at YSC Sports and VE will host Charlotte Independence on March 21 at Cairn University.

3. 🏆 Tweet of the Day: Union Open Cup

4. 💧 Water Cooler: Goal Prediction Results

5. 🔗 Link Roundup

• Four questions with our friends at KC Soccer Journal ahead of tonight’s game against SKC.

• St. Louis City supporter group St. Louligans are boycotting the Leagues Cup in response to MLS not entering all of their teams into the U.S. Open Cup.

• Union prospect David Vazquez has been signed to a Union II contract.

• I looked at this graphic several times surprised to not see Quinn Sullivan’s name on it, but Julian Carranza and Daniel Gazdag both made the Champions Cup Best XI from the first round so they’re both on there.

• Eddy Davis had a brace and Nick Pariano converted from the spot to lead Philadelphia Union II to a 3-3 draw with USL Championship side Hartford Athletic on Friday.

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