Ten days ago, North Carolina FC and the Houston Dynamo lined up to play a relatively normal US Open Cup game. After 120 minutes, the Dynamo prevailed 3–2 and moved on to the Sweet 16.

Why was it a normal game? Because NCFC President Curt Johnson and Head Coach Colin Clarke, both of whom I talked to in the run-up to last week’s game, said so.

“The important thing from the operational side is we treat them the same between a US Open Cup game, an NASL or NWSL regular season game,” Johnson told me. Almost preempting Clarke, he went on to say, “Maybe we’ve had some success over the years because we didn’t treat [an Open Cup game] differently from a regular game.”

That said, some in the press box opined that these MLS games in the Open Cup used to draw close to 10,000. Perhaps last week’s game was normal because it only drew about 4,000. Indeed, MLS games in Cary are now so standard that it’s believable when Curt Johnson and Colin Clarke talk about preparing for the Dynamo like it’s any other game.

But MLS aspirations now hang over everything these days, and because of that, it wasn’t a normal game. From the outside, it seemed an opportunity to show the league that the market is ready for MLS.

But Johnson said that MLS won’t be making the NCFC decision based on one game and that’s true. It’s fine to look at Sacramento and Cincinnati with envy because they brought 10 and 30 thousand to their MLS Open Cup games. But that was each team’s first MLS home game. This was Cary’s 11th.

This was a normal game because RailHawk/NCFC fans know this isn’t 2012 anymore. The Dynamo aren’t the defending league double champions. And even if they were, we’ve seen enough games to know that the actual level of the players coming to Cary isn’t too far off from that of those who play every week here.

So what about on the field? Does this game spark something different in the team and in the players? And why does NCFC/the RailHawks normally play so well against MLS competition?

“I think it’s because we don’t do anything differently,” Clarke said when asked that last question. “We take it very seriously. I think maybe that’s what helps us in some ways.” He went on to talk about how preparations from film work to training — even on a short week — didn’t change just because this game happened to be against an MLS team.

It’s hard to argue the approach: With two exceptions — the 2014 games against the Galaxy and FC Dallas — the once-RailHawks always came out playing their game, getting guys like Tiyi Shipalane and now Lance Laing into space on the wing and finding that deadly endline pass. Last week was no different.

At the same time, it wasn’t a normal game because Houston’s Dylan Remick just won the biggest trophy US Soccer has to offer last season for the Seattle Sounders. He ended up contributing at least two goals’ worth, scoring once and clearing a sure NCFC goal off the line.

But an entire team of MLS Cup winners came to Cary in 2014 and did worse, and Remick didn’t even play much for the Sounders last year. The last relevant MLS playoff moment any guy on the field had was back in 2012, when Joe Willis came on for a sent-off Bill Hamid and saved Kenny Cooper’s penalty.

These guys just don’t move the needle like Donovan and Keane did. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a normal game had the international break not ended the day before, depriving us of players like Alberth Elis, Romell Quioto, DaMarcus Beasley, Boniek Garcia, and Adolfo Machado, or if an impending Saturday night game in Los Angeles hadn’t forced guys like Ricardo Clark, Cubo Torres, and Alex out of the lineup. I’m an MLS junkie I didn’t recognize guys like Eric Bird or Charlie Ward. I knew Vicente Sanchez from his Colorado days but had no idea he would have the impact he did.

At the same time, it wasn’t a normal game because it isn’t every day as an NASL player that you get to test your mettle in front of a current MLS coaching staff.

“A lot of the players feel they’re good enough to play at the MLS level and this is their chance to prove that on the night,” Clarke told me. Among those players is Nazmi Albadawi, who’s grown from interesting young academy prospect two years ago to the playmaking captain.

“He’s the franchise,” Clarke said of Albadawi. “He’s what we look to do, pick up local players and give them the opportunity from youth all the way up to the professional level. He’s a great kid and a great story, and someone who certainly can play at the next level.”

Albadawi himself had a solid if unspectacular day. It likely would have been more spectacular had one of the optimistic long red arrows you see in the Opta passing diagram below had turned green:

Green passes are completed, red passes are not, and yellow passes led to shots

But Albadawi’s game was smart. His only miscues were down the field, direct balls that would have led to great scoring opportunities.

Longtime Inter Milan coach Helenio Herrera once said, “If you lose the ball playing vertically, it’s not a problem — but lose it laterally and you pay with a goal.” That’s how Albadawi played and, hopefully, the MLS scouts noticed. Unfortunately, like a normal game between an MLS side and a non-MLS side, Albadawi will likely have to wait another year to showcase his talents on such a stage.

Even the unusual aspects of the game itself weren’t abnormal. Just like in last year’s game, a 90-minute delay forced the visiting team’s winning extra time goal to happen near midnight. So why am I, a whole ten days later, still ruing Shipalane’s surefire goal Remick cleared off the line?

“Special games are special for a reason,” said Johnson. “It’s a rarity to be able to host an MLS team in your stadium… It’s special, it’s unique, and it’s different in part because of the competition. The US Open Cup is becoming more and more popular as more of the general sports fan and maybe the casual soccer fan understands the long history of the tournament and the fact that it’s an all-comers tournament.”

I don’t think I could put it any more clearly than that. The Open Cup is a special competition, and beating an MLS team under any competitive circumstances is a wonderful thing.

To come so close and see it slip away evokes a not normal feeling.