For much of the 20th century, winning the US Open Cup required a team to beat someone from St Louis. The Gateway City was home to many of the nation’s best teams during some ramshackle eras of soccer in the United States, with six different clubs combining for 10 trophy lifts. The most recent came in 1988, when St Louis Busch Seniors beat San Francisco-based Greek-American AC in the last throes of a tournament history dominated by amateur and semi-pro teams. MLS has won every Open Cup but one since starting play in 1996, and St Louis didn’t have an MLS club until 2023.
From the beginning, club figures spoke of aims to restore the city to soccer prominence. Well, mission accomplished. St Louis City are US Open Cup champions, outlasting the Columbus Crew 5-4 on penalties away from home to end the city’s 38-year wait for a major US soccer title and earn a place in the field for the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup.
Daniel Edelman scored the decisive penalty, with backup goalkeeper Ben Lundt making a save on Columbus’ first attempt, himself having entered the match in the second half.
Fittingly given their home city’s rich soccer history, City’s first trophy is also the nation’s oldest. Wednesday marked the 109th final in the history of the Open Cup, which was first held in 1913–14 and has run continuously save for a two-year hiatus during the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, St Louis did so with MLS’s youngest manager – Yoann Damet, the 36-year-old Frenchman who was previously Wilfried Nancy’s top assistant in Columbus but was passed over for the top job after Nancy left. St Louis will be thankful that he was.
Often two of the nation’s most aesthetically pleasing teams, Columbus and St Louis opened the final by minimizing risk. For the opening half-hour, St Louis carried a 60% share of possession but failed to muster a single shot. The hosts were a bit more incisive whenever they found the ball, working to advance upfield and trying to fashion chances for Brais Méndez, but failed to threaten Roman Bürki’s net.
Referee Guido Gonzales Jr promptly blew his half-time whistle after the 45th minute. No need for stoppage time after that half, and few could argue.
Both teams returned with intentions to sustain the caginess after the break. Columbus continued to dramatically tilt the field, taking 11 touches in St Louis’ box after half-time before the visitors managed a single one. Still, Bürki kept their sole on-target effort from rippling the net. The visitors responded by upping their fouling volume to further impede the Crew’s efforts.
The 69th minute provided an inflection point as Columbus again entered the St Louis box, where Santi Rodríguez took a clattering from behind by Carlo Holse but saw the referee play the advantage. Méndez picked up the loose ball, strafed across the top of the box to his left, and played a through-ball to former Morocco international Anass Zaroury, whose shot was blocked by a fearless Bürki who took contact to his head from the wing-back’s knee, staying down as the play fizzled.
As the former Switzerland international received medical treatment, the VAR had ample time to review and, ultimately, clear the potential penalty on Holse’s initial tackle. Ultimately, a six-minute examination led to Bürki exiting the match on a stretcher, leaving to a stadium-wide applause. Later, the CBS Sports broadcast relayed that Bürki was “OK” shortly after his departure, though he was taken to the hospital for an evaluation. In stepped Lundt, a backup since coming to MLS in 2019 – but one who had played shootout hero before for St Louis, winning their quarter-final shootout against Houston.
Another injury, seemingly a leg muscle issue to promising Columbus midfielder Taha Habroune, brought Eric Bailly off the bench with captain Sean Zawadzki pushing into midfield to accommodate. The fourth official showed 11 minutes of stoppage time, perhaps cashing some rollover minutes from the first half on top of the lengthy delay as Bürki was examined. The Nordecke increased the volume of their support, but the game’s established physicality hardly waned for their efforts. St Louis seemed to fashion a clear look inside the box in the 10th minute of stoppage time, but US international Damion Downs took too heavy a touch to fashion a shot.
A minute later, the whistle blew. Despite Columbus outshooting St Louis 16-3, both teams finished the 90 minutes without a goal to their name or a trophy to their claim. Another 30 minutes of brawling followed.
Neither team ceded an inch in the opening minutes of extra time, exchanging hard challenges and failing to maximize their ensuing set pieces.
After Timo Baumgartl started the sequence with a make, Columbus’ Santi Rodriguez sent his attempt to Lundt’s left only to be stifled by a strong left hand. The teams each converted their next three attempts, although Lundt nearly ended the sequence with a finger to Andrés Herrera’s effort in the fourth round. Edelman stepped up and made no mistake with his trophy-winner.
The MLS schedule-makers did the finalists no favors as both teams played on the road this weekend, although St Louis enjoyed an extra day of rest. St Louis also entered the final at a known disadvantage, playing without striker Rafael Navarro. A front-runner for the year-end MLS Best XI, Navarro played for the Colorado Rapids through the quarter-final stage, cap-tying him for the remainder of the tournament.
While Columbus was recently a contender on all fronts under Nancy, his departure at the end of 2025 forced the Crew into a stylistic reset. Rather than hire his top assistant, Damet, Columbus looked beyond the league and hired Henrik Rydström, a self-proclaimed acolyte of “relationism”. The Swede never adapted to MLS, quickly leading Columbus toward the bottom of the East before being shown the door in May after just 17 matches.
His replacement, Laurent Courtois, was another Nancy disciple. Meanwhile, Damet is a frontrunner for coach of the year, is in line for a top-three finish in the Western Conference – and, now, is the Open Cup champion.
In an era where fiction fixates on multiverses, Columbus will no doubt wonder what could have been had they opted for continuity and retained Damet. Their loss is St Louis’ gain, as the Western Conference club will hope this is the first of multiple trophies to be won under MLS’s youngest manager.
