The Philly-Pittsburgh rivalry comes to soccer in the U.S. Open Cup

There’s no rivalry between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in soccer like there is in hockey, football, baseball, and, above all, Wawa vs. Sheetz.

But that’s mainly because there haven’t been many games in the first place.

That will change on Wednesday, when the Union host the Pittsburgh Riverhounds of the second-tier USL Championship in the U.S. Open Cup (7:30 p.m., Paramount+). It will be the first time these teams meet in American soccer’s national championship after 16 years of waiting.

The wait across the sport has been even longer than that. The last time any teams from the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh regions met in the tournament was 1992, when the amateur United German-Hungarians from here beat the Beadling Soccer Club from there in the first round.

When the Union’s reserve squad played in the USL, it faced the Riverhounds 14 times from 2016 to 2020. Some of those games were pretty dramatic, including a 2018 playoff matchup that went to penalty kicks and became Union II’s first postseason win.

Some familiar names took the field: current Union players Nathan Harriel, Olivier Mbaizo, and Quinn Sullivan, and alumni, including Brenden and Paxten Aaronson, Cory Burke, Jack McGlynn, Mark McKenzie, and Auston Trusty.

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Brandon Aubrey played in two of them long before he became the Dallas Cowboys’ kicker. Faris Moumbagna played in four long before he hit the big time with French club Marseille. Maurice Edu even played in two while rehabbing injuries in his last years as a pro.

But none of those games will be as big as Wednesday’s. There is excitement among both teams for the occasion, including Union manager Bradley Carnell.

“They are having a great run,” Carnell said of the Riverhounds, the last lower-division team alive in this year’s tournament. “We told the boys, ‘No sense in any underestimation, because we went through what we did to get to this point last time around against Indy.’”

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That was a reference to the Union’s last Open Cup game, when Indy Eleven took it to penalty kicks in the round of 32. The players doubtless needed no reminding, especially those who went all 120-plus minutes.

“By no means are we going to let the guards down,” Carnell said. “This is a serious game, and we’re treating it as such.”

Though Carnell is new here, he has done his homework. He also has some experience with new rivalries from when he managed St. Louis City. Their first meetings with Sporting Kansas City and the Chicago Fire were big occasions.

“In order for something to become a rivalry, there needs to become a history,” he said. “So I think this is the first step toward creating history. You need a result. You need something to establish, an event to take place, and [on Wednesday] we have that first event. … Two Pennsylvania teams coming against each other, for sure, yeah, there’s a little bit of pride at stake.”

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Carnell knows how a rivalry can become even bigger in a cup match. In his early playing days in Germany, his VfB Stuttgart team played German Cup road games at perennial power Bayern Munich and former power Hamburg.

“In some sense, you can always play free as the underdog — you have no pressure,” he said. “And I think that’s the way that they’re going to come out tomorrow.”

He wants his team “to force the issue in certain ways, especially playing at home. We have to dictate the terms on our turf.”

Riverhounds coach Bob Lilley is a veteran of lower-league soccer and has deep regional roots. He was born in Fort Monmouth, N.J., spent his teenage years in Carlisle, and played for the old Hershey Wildcats and indoor Hershey Impact and Harrisburg Heat. He was teammates in Harrisburg and in college at George Mason with Christian Pulisic’s father, Mark, and they’ve worked together a few times since.

Lilley’s many coaching stops include the former Rochester Rhinos, one of America’s most famous lower-league teams (and the last one to win the Open Cup, in 1999). In 2015, he led the Rhinos when they took the Union to penalty kicks in the Open Cup, four rounds before the Union played in their second final.

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“It’s really cool to come back here, and just to see this,” Lilley said as his team wrapped up practice Tuesday on one of the Union’s fields. “Since the last time I’ve been here, the new buildouts everywhere, it gets better every time. I’m excited about the growth of soccer in this country, but certainly in the state of Pennsylvania over the last 10 years. It’s come a long way.”

There is buzz in Pittsburgh about the game, and although it’s a midweek contest, hopefully some fans will make the cross-state trip.

“Our fans are quite excited — this would be a great game to host at some point,” Lilley said. “I know at our place, I’m sure it would be a sellout.”

It would indeed be fun. Pittsburgh’s 5,000-seat Highmark Stadium is nestled on the Monongahela River’s south shore, not far from the famed confluence with the Ohio and Allegheny. Downtown is a short walk away over the Smithfield Street Bridge, and the city’s light rail isn’t far, either.

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Earlier this month the place witnessed an Open Cup classic: Beto Ydrach scored a 96th-minute winner to topple New York City FC, 1-0, in the round of 32. But as fun as that was, Lilley knows this game will be tough.

“We hope to get in the game in the first half, but Philly’s having a great year and has a really strong roster,” he said. “So we know it’s a big challenge and [are] just happy to be still standing, and hopefully we can make it competitive [Wednesday] night.”