Alejandro Bedoya takes the Union’s Open Cup run personally, wanting a final trophy in his career
"Especially now, as a guy who’s experienced and closer to the end... you want to win at every chance you’ve got," Bedoya said ahead of Wednesday's Open Cup quarterfinal at Subaru Park.
Like many athletes these days, Alejandro Bedoya has started to dip his toes in the media world.
When the U.S. Soccer Federation decided to launch an official podcast at the start of the summer, it found a natural fit in a player who earned 66 caps for the men’s national team, including at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The Union’s longtime captain has been a pro for 16 years, with five clubs spanning the U.S. to France, Sweden, and Scotland.
You might wonder how honest someone as famously forthright as Bedoya will be on a governing body’s official show. (The same goes for his equally-outspoken colleague from the U.S. women’s team, Pittsburgh native Meghan Klingenberg.)
But on one subject, it was easy for Bedoya to say what’s on his mind: the Union’s deepest run in the U.S. Open Cup since its last trip to the final in 2018.
“I want to get back there,” he said last week, recalling having played in that 3-1 loss at Houston. “I want to get back to a final, and wherever we end up playing, be hoisting that trophy at the end of it.”
Those words hit especially hard heading into Wednesday’s quarterfinal against the New York Red Bulls at Subaru Park (7:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network and Paramount+). After the originally scheduled game was postponed a month due to thunderstorms, the teams will try again, and coincidentally, more storms are expected on the new date. Hopefully, they’ll leave town before kickoff, as the forecast suggests.
But while Mother Nature can delay a kickoff, she can’t delay Bedoya’s body clock. The 38-year-old knows he is running out of time to win a second trophy for the team he came home from Europe to join nine years ago.
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Nor can she defy the Open Cup draw, which enforced Wednesday’s game being the Union’s last at home in this year’s tournament. Nashville will host the winner in the semifinals on Sept. 16. That winner will visit Minnesota or Austin for the national championship’s 110th final.
So this moment matters, in the Union’s bigger picture — and to Bedoya personally.
“I would say especially now, as a guy who’s experienced and closer to the end [and] retiring than not, you want to win at every chance you’ve got to get it,” he told The Inquirer in a recent interview. “You want to get your hands on silverware. You just never know when you’re going to get another opportunity to get to a final to compete for a trophy.”
Going on a cup run specifically matters to him, too. In 2022, Bedoya watched with great pride from afar when his old French club, Nantes, won the Coupe de France for its first title in two decades. This year, there were surprising winners across Europe, including Crystal Palace in England’s FA Cup, featuring American centerback Chris Richards.
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“Knowing around the world, what a national tournament like this can do for a club and for its fan base,” Bedoya said, “it just means so much to so many.”
He wants the message to be heard by the Union’s young players as much as anyone. Some might not hear it just from him — especially Quinn and Cavan Sullivan, given their family’s three-generation history in the Open Cup — but it still bears saying.
“Some guys are very young here, I get that, and they always think that there could be always next year, always the next year [after that],” Bedoya said. “You can’t approach it like that. … For those who have been able to lift trophies, whether it’s the Gold Cup or this or that, I think it’s important for players to realize that when there’s a trophy on the line, you compete and you want to win it.”
The two-time Gold Cup winner gave a nod to the Open Cup’s history, so much of which has been written in Pennsylvania over the decades. The commonwealth’s 14 titles rank third among any state. But the last one was won in 1966, with the Union losing in three finals: 2014, 2015, and 2018.
“It should mean that much more for every player who’s taking part in it, especially in a tournament that has a lot of history, a lot of tradition,” Bedoya said. “You can make what you will of what’s been happening the last couple years, but it’s still the Open Cup, it’s still the oldest tournament in our country. It’s something that a lot of people put a lot of effort into competing in.”
That was a bit of shade thrown at MLS headquarters’ disdain for the Open Cup in recent years. For financial and other reasons, the league chose to only send some of its teams to the tournament, putting an asterisk on the Open part of Open Cup.
There was also a point to make about the Union. The club fell at the first hurdle in the Open Cup in 2019, 2022 and 2023, with the last of those part of the most jammed schedule in team history: the regular season, the Open Cup, the Leagues Cup, and the Concacaf Champions Cup.
The Open Cup draw sent the Union to Minnesota for their opener, in between two regular-season road games. Then-manager Jim Curtin had to rotate the lineup, and the team lost on penalties.
» READ MORE: Three generations of Northeast Philadelphia’s Sullivans have made soccer history in the U.S. Open Cup
This year, the Open Cup is the only tournament the Union are in. Between that and the new voice of Bradley Carnell, the team has given it a focus other MLS teams have not.
“Well, that’s what I kind of just referenced, right?” Bedoya said. “The last couple years, the Open Cup, you know, with the amount of games that we’re playing — the amount of tournaments and things that are within the league, and ownership groups maybe trying to push for different competitions — maybe it’s lost a little bit of that importance, right? You saw last year that certain MLS teams weren’t even a part of it.”
The importance is there now, in the midst of a season that’s been remarkably successful so far. The Union keep beating the odds in the standings, holding the league’s best record with eight games to go (15-5-6, 51 points). For a lot of outsiders, that increases the urgency for the team to win something this year.
Does it for Bedoya?
“I don’t know if I’d say it increases the urgency, but it’s a definitely a catalyst for the fans, for the club,” he said. “I know in the past, because of signings here and there, maybe you could say that there hasn’t been an intent to do this or that. I think the fact that we’re at the top doesn’t mean that it’s more urgent to win something, but it does mean that we can compete and we are competing.”
And, he hopes, finally winning something.
“The fact that we’re still in it, to be in the Supporters’ Shield race, to be in an Open Cup race, obviously the ultimate goal to win MLS Cup — that’s important for me as a player,” he said. “I want to be able to say we won this, we won that.”
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