Less than 24 hours before Orlando City and Sacramento Republic are set to face off in the U.S. Open Cup tournament final, a U.S. Soccer spokesperson confirmed the federation is looking into an Orlando City first-team staffer spying on Sacramento’s training session in the Orlando area Monday.
“The Club has been made aware of the matter regarding Sacramento’s training session and is cooperating with U.S. Soccer,” Orlando City said in a statement.
The final pits a first-division MLS team against a second-division opponent for the first time since 2008, when D.C. United defeated the Charleston Battery. Sacramento is looking to become the first lower-division team to win a U.S. Open Cup since the Rochester Rhinos defeated the Colorado Rapids in 1999.
Sacramento, which plays in the second-division USL Championship, was training at Central Winds Park in Winter Springs, located 23 miles north of Exploria Stadium, sources with knowledge of the incident who were not authorized to speak publicly due to the ongoing investigation told The Athletic. There, Republic FC spotted an Orlando City employee watching the practice session, sources said. Sacramento staff asked the Orlando City employee to leave and that employee refused to do so for 30-45 minutes, sources added.
ESPN’s Taylor Twellman first reported the news. Attempts to reach Sacramento Republic were not immediately successful.
It is unlikely the incident will have any impact on Wednesday’s final, as it will be referred to the Open Cup committee at U.S. Soccer and will have to go through the process of an investigation.
The U.S. Open Cup is a competition that dates back to 1914. The cup competition is open to teams of every level of soccer in the U.S., from men’s amateur sides up through the top professional divisions. The tournament had been played every year since 1914 until it was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s final already presented plenty of intrigue. Not only was it a rare matchup between a first- and second-division team, but Sacramento was announced as an MLS expansion team in 2019 only for then-owner Ron Burkle to pull out of the deal in 2021.
MLS has since turned its gaze elsewhere in the expansion market, including to Las Vegas and San Diego.
Sacramento currently sits in fourth place in the USL Championship Western Conference while Orlando City is in fifth place in the MLS Eastern Conference. Wednesday night’s final at Orlando’s Exploria Stadium is sold out.
(Photo: Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
