The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the longest running soccer tournament in the United States, just concluded it's 111th edition. St. Louis City brought the Gateway City their 11th US Open Cup title, the most of any city not named New York. And while we say goodbye to another year of the tournament, the reality is the Open Cup never sleeps or stops. While every MLS side will participate in the 2027 edition that will not be the case in the USL.
Currently the United Soccer Leagues have a combined total of 42 teams in their professional men's leagues the USL Championship and USL League One. Should no teams fold and all expansion happen, the USL will jump to 47 clubs playing during the 2027 season. However only 34 teams total will qualify from USLC and USL1. How those will be split up remains to be seen, but it does mean that more than a handful will miss the Open Cup. And that means that the regular season is effectively a qualification round for the tournament.
For fans of non-league clubs the regular season acting as qualification for the Open Cup is no surprise. That has been the case in NPSL and USL2 for many years and has also now become the case for the UPSL and The League for Clubs. While the number of entries for each league changes every year, 2027 is set to be the most straight forward in a long time due to how the USSF handed out non-league slots.
The League for Clubs playoff champion, the UPSL Spring season playoff finalists, and the NPSL Semi-Finalists all represent those leagues directly qualifying through the playoffs. USL League Two went a different route, awarding their slots to teams based on their 2026 regular season standings. Playoff champions for the NPSL (El Farolito) and USL2 (Vermont Green) qualified through the National Amateur Cup and Hank Steinbrecher Cup respectively.
Running from March to July, the USASA National Amateur Cup acts as a direct qualifier for the US Open Cup. The tournament, founded in 1923, starts with each of the USASA's four regions hosting their own tournament. Officially every match in the NAC is a USOC qualifying match and has previously resulted in records being set. Once the four regions champions are determined a national final four is held and the winner qualifies for the following years tournament.
For non-league teams who don't qualify in any of those ways there is also the direct US Open Cup "Open Division" qualifying rounds. Those rounds start after the end of the regular season, with most matches taking place between August and October. All non-league teams that played in 2026, regardless of league, are eligible to go through the qualifying tournament. This is a recent change as until 2026 if a club was in a "National Amateur League" (the NPSL or USL2) they were not eligible for open division qualifying. Two rounds in qualifying have already taken place and two more rounds are left.
31 October and 1 November will see 64 teams play 32 games with the winners advancing to the final round of qualifying. The final round of qualifying will take place in late-November where the 32 winners from round three will meet to determine the 16 open division qualifiers for the tournament proper.
