Manhattan

On a first-round Saturday in the 2023 U.S. Open Cup, Manhattan SC beat FC Motown 2-1 in extra time. The club had never played in the tournament before. Its senior side had never played in a playoff before 2022, either. The 2020 season was cancelled because of the pandemic. In 2021 the move from the Northeast Division to the Metropolitan Division brought more struggling.

Then came 2022, when Manhattan won the Metropolitan Division with 12 wins and 2 defeats, and no draws. That record put the club in the playoffs for the first time and, in turn, in the Open Cup. The win over Motown may be the biggest match in the organisation's history. In the second round Flower City Union ended the run.

Manhattan Soccer Club started in 1997 as a youth operation growing out of the West Side Soccer League on the Upper West Side, and it is a non-profit, unrelated to Manhattan University and its Jaspers. Despite the name, the first team plays in the Bronx, at Gaelic Park, a ground holding around 2,000 spectators, and it has at times shared hosting with Manhattan College. Red, white and black are the colours, and the press sometimes calls the players "the boys in red".

Shakur Mohammed, who played for the club, went second overall to Orlando City SC in the 2023 MLS SuperDraft. Shermaine Martina, a Curaçao international, and Jake McGuire both moved on to North Carolina FC.

Staten Island Athletic are one such opponent.