For the first time in seven years, the Union are on a U.S. Open Cup run. Will it matter?

If you follow English soccer but not the Union, which is true for plenty of people, you might have heard about Crystal Palace winning the FA Cup last weekend.

You might have heard that it was the London club’s first major title in its nearly 120-year history. You might have heard that Rebecca Lowe, the longtime host of NBC’s Premier League coverage — which receives more national TV in a week than the Union sometimes gets in a year — is one of Palace’s most famous fans.

You also might have heard that the team is nicknamed the Eagles. This prompted the BBC’s play-by-play broadcaster to proclaim “It’s the year of the Eagles!” just before the final whistle. He even mentioned Philadelphia by name on the biggest TV channel in England, a country that sees the NFL as an occasional distraction. (Just like how some people in this former colony see England’s national sport.)

What does any of this have to do with the Union? More than you might think, and not just because Quinn Sullivan will join Palace’s Chris Richards and Matt Turner at next month’s U.S. men’s national team camp.

For the first time in seven years, the Union are on a run in the U.S. Open Cup. Their easy 4-1 win over the Pittsburgh Riverhounds on Wednesday sent them on to the quarterfinals, three wins away from the title.

You might have heard that the Union have made three Open Cup finals in their history, and lost them all: 2014, 2015, and 2018. If you hadn’t until now, there could be a few reasons why.

The most obvious is that this team doesn’t win things. It has just one trophy in its 16-year history, the Supporters’ Shield for the 2020 regular-season title.

» READ MORE: Union easily handle Pittsburgh Riverhounds, 4-1, to advance to U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals

The energy of a cup run doesn’t just come when the local team goes deep in a tournament. It comes when a team that doesn’t win things does so.

In March, Newcastle United won England’s Football League Cup for its first trophy since 1955. The celebrations around St. James’ Park were as big as what Broad Street saw a month earlier. (Though they were laced with controversy, since Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund is what fuels the team‘s resources).

In Italy — a country this city knows well, given its robust Italian American neighborhoods — Bologna won the Coppa Italia for the first time in 51 years, its first trophy of any kind in 27 years.

In Germany, another country with deep ties here, both of this year‘s DFB-Pokal finalists are unusual. VfB Stuttgart, where Union manager Bradley Carnell once played, hasn’t won a major trophy in 18 years. Its opponent, Arminia Bielefeld, is even more remarkable: a third-division team with no major trophies since 1974.

» READ MORE: The Philly-Pittsburgh rivalry comes to soccer in the U.S. Open Cup

And in France, Ben Franklin’s favorite foreign land, Reims will play Saturday’s Coupe de France final between playoff games to avoid relegation from Ligue 1. The club from the heart of Champagne country hasn’t won the French league since 1962.

Its opponent, Paris Saint-Germain, is the nation’s biggest team. Few people will remember if PSG wins a 16th French Cup, not least because it’s in the Champions League final next weekend. But if Reims pulls off the upset, it will be an all-timer.

All of this relates to the Union, and perhaps now it makes sense.

Of the eight teams left in this year‘s Open Cup field, the Union have the second-fewest trophies. D.C. United (13), the Chicago Fire (six), and the San Jose Earthquakes (four) have well-stocked mantles, even if their contents are getting a bit dusty. The New York Red Bulls have three, albeit all Supporters’ Shields. The remaining three teams — Austin FC, Minnesota United, and Nashville SC — have none, but they’re much newer MLS franchises than the Union.

Though the quarterfinals aren’t until July 8 and 9, on current form, this team definitely is among the favorites to win it. It has MLS’s best record entering Saturday’s much-anticipated visit of Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami (7:30 p.m., Apple TV), and the squad has navigated a nine-game month with remarkable aplomb. Wednesday’s win made it five wins and a tie in six games, with 22 players getting minutes.

» READ MORE: Has the Union’s roster versatility been the secret to their success? Time to ask Andre Blake.

“When you have momentum, and you have the schedule that we’ve had, when you rotate all the players that you do, and everyone feels confident, ready, excited … there [are] so many good things now trending in the right way,” Carnell said after Wednesday’s win. “So now it’s up to us to keep on setting those standards and pushing the levels and just see how far we can take that.”

He called the mood in the locker room “serious fun” and praised longtime captain Alejandro Bedoya for giving a speech this week that kept spirits high.

“He was like, ‘Guys, we don’t care who’s on the field. We care about the principles of how we play,’” Carnell said. “And that was massive because that was a big turning moment for us as a coaching staff — that Ale Bedoya speaks now about the principles of how we play, and everyone’s embraced the style of play. And it’s pretty fun to be part of.”

That energy was not matched in the stands. For all that the team‘s core fan base protested the Leagues Cup last year, and signaled that it cared about the Open Cup more, Wednesday’s crowd was remarkably small, announced as just 2,246.

» READ MORE: With one late goal, the Union slayed two of their biggest demons in their win over the Los Angeles Galaxy

Sure, it wasn’t part of the team‘s season ticket package. And it was a midweek game. And the lashing rain was only good for the geese by the Delaware River.

But Subaru Park usually is full for regular-season games on Saturday nights, and the place obviously will be packed to the gills for Messi.

Open Cup home games are special partially because they aren’t a given. In the Leagues Cup, MLS teams don’t play in Mexico. In the Concacaf Champions Cup, each round before the final is a home-and-away series.

In the Open Cup, every round is one game, and hosting is based on draws throughout the tournament. The Union knows this well: before this year’s round-of-32 game against Indy Eleven, they hadn’t hosted since 2018.

The Union will host the New York Red Bulls in the quarterfinals on July 8 or 9, but that will be their last home game of the year in the tournament.

Tuesday’s draw for the rest of the bracket left the Union last of the four eastern teams — Nashville SC hosts D.C. United in the other quarter — for semifinal hosting rights and sent the final to the western half of the bracket. Minnesota United hosts the Chicago Fire, and the San Jose Earthquakes host Austin FC on that side, with Minnesota and Austin first in line to host the semis.

So the Union will have to do it the hard way. Local fans will have just one more chance this year to help, unless D.C. upsets Nashville and a bus trip becomes possible. It will be a reminder that the ghosts of Philadelphia’s grand Open Cup history can’t fill seats on their own. Only living fans can do that.

» READ MORE: Josh Gros has been with the Union for their entire history, and has lots of stories to tell