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New England Revolution Hold Off FC Dallas, 3-2, to Claim 2007 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup

October 3, 2007 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
FC Dallas News Release


FRISCO, Texas (October 3, 2007) - Pat Noonan recorded a goal and two assists to pace the New England Revolution to the 2007 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup championship, defeating the host FC Dallas, 3-2, before an exuberant crowd of 10,618 at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas.

The Open Cup title is the first championship of any kind in Revolution franchise history, and ends a streak of four losses in domestic competition finals that included one Open Cup and three MLS Cup final appearances. New England also broke their losing spell in finals at Pizza Hut Park, having lost back-to-back MLS Cup finals in 2005 and 2006 in Frisco.

"It's overwhelming," said New England captain Steve Ralston, who has been in MLS since 1996 and collected his first trophy with this win. "It's such a different feeling from our past experiences. It's a much better view from up on the stage afterwards. We have a lot of experience in finals. We never got rattled. Every time we went up, they came fighting back. We've been in finals before but I just had a feeling about tonight. I knew we were going to win."

With Dallas playing in their third Open Cup final and New England playing in their second, both teams brought pace and intensity to the first 45 minutes. Dallas looked to be the more dangerous side, launching numerous attacks from the flanks, but New England goalkeeper Matt Reis had command of his area and consistently foiled the FC Dallas efforts.

New England started to find their footing 20 minutes in, and a minute later they struck gold. Pat Noonan opened the scoring in the 21st minute, the Revs taking advantage of two Dallas miscues. A failed clearance in midfield from Pablo Ricchetti allowed Ralston to pick up the scraps and race down the right flank. The team captain swerved a cross to the near post that Dallas 'keeper Dario Sala appeared to have handled, but Adrian Serioux's last-second sliding clearance attempt deflected the ball over Sala's arm to a wide-open Noonan, who took one touch before escorting the ball over the line. The tap-in was Noonan's second goal of the tournament.

FC Dallas struck back at the half hour mark, tying the scoreline off the fancy footwork of Arturo Alvarez. Gathering the ball alone on the left flank, Alvarez cut inside of Jay Heaps before uncorking a wicked bending shot off the outside of his left foot that curled past the outstretched Matt Reis and banged off the inside of the far post.

New England snatched the lead back in the 41st minute off a corner kick from Steve Ralston. Noonan and Carlos Ruiz challenged for the cross, the ball ping-ponging to the far post where Taylor Twellman had left Serioux behind. He made no mistake, powering home a header to give the Revs a 2-1 lead heading into the interval. The goal was Twellman's fourth in the 2007 U.S. Open Cup tournament and his 15th career goal against Dallas in all competitions.

Dallas came out on the attack in the second, pressing numbers forward in search of the equalizer. Their efforts left them exposed at the back, and New England took advantage to go up 3-1 just before the hour mark. A quick counter attack put Noonan and Twellman in two against one, a slightly errant pass sending Twellman to the corner. He collected the ball and picked out Noonan at the top of the six yard box, who deftly backheeled a pass to Wells Thompson, who ran past Serioux and blasted a low drive to the far post in the 58th minute to earn his first points of the Open Cup.

Dallas continued to fight back, and after replacing Alex Yi in the 63rd minute, Abe Thompson quickly made his mark on the match. After winning a ball in the right corner, Serioux delivered a cross to the back post that Clarence Goodson battled to head back across the box. Thompson, getting his first touch of the match, fired back across the goal through traffic to cut the deficit to one goal.

Oduro appeared to have the game-tying goal in the 80th minute after slipping behind the Revs defense and finishing past Reis, but the linesman's flag was up to signal offside.

The five-goal final was the highest scoring U.S. Open Cup final in almost 15 years, dating all the way back to 1993 with San Francisco CD Mexico defeated Philadelphia United German-Hungarians 5-0. The Revolution are the seventh club from Major League Soccer to claim the U.S. Open Cup title since the league's inception in 1996. Overall, 11 of the tournament's past 12 champions have been MLS clubs.

The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the U.S. Soccer Federation's National Championship, is an annual competition open to all amateur and professional soccer teams affiliated with U.S. Soccer. It is the oldest annual team tournament in U.S. sports history and among the oldest soccer tournaments of its type in the world. In 1999, the competition was renamed to honor long-time soccer pioneer Lamar Hunt.

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