They have jobs and families and commitments – and sometimes their feet hurt – so the men of the Outbreak Football Club practice soccer only one hour a week.

Each player pays $200 to wear used uniforms and play for a second-division amateur team based in Huntington Beach. Five of the players work in the same financial planning office. The average age on the roster is 34. A midfielder hurt his calf at practice so he decided – making a major sacrifice – to give up beer until he’s completely healthy.

They don’t have a website or sponsorships or a fan club.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday, the aging boys from Orange County will fly to Seattle to play against the big boys. They’re improbably still in the hunt to win one of the oldest and most prestigious awards in American soccer.

Outbreak FC, one of 14 amateur teams to qualify in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, plays the Seattle Sounders’ U-23 team at 7:30 p.m. at Panther Stadium in Bonney Lake, Wash.

If Outbreak should win – and the club is the highest-ranking amateur team left standing – the players will receive a $15,000 prize.

The winner of the U.S. Open Cup (it takes eight victories to win) will receive $250,000. There are 18 Major League Soccer teams in the tournament.

To put this in perspective, the Seattle Sounders U-23 team, with seven international players on its roster, has full-time players with hopes of becoming stars in the MLS or around the world. Five years ago, DeAndre Yedlin, now a star for Sunderland in the English Premier League and the U.S. National soccer team, was a U-23 Sounder.

The Sounders U-23 players, it is safe to say, practice more in a single day than the Outbreak practice in a week.

It is also safe to say they have no idea what kind of amateur team they are about to go up against.

Outbreak FC is in the tournament only because a couple of buddies in the office of Bryson Financial in Long Beach egged each other on.

In September, financial analyst Torey Edwards, a former golf pro who took up soccer after seven years of trying to make a living chasing a tiny white ball, filled out an application for this once-a-week team to enter the U.S. Open Cup, the oldest competition in American soccer. The entry fee cost Outbreak FC $500, by far the team’s biggest expenditure.

They won the first qualifier against a younger team from Buena Park, 5-1.

Then they played better than they thought they could play when they stunned the San Pedro Monsters, a first-division amateur soccer powerhouse, in overtime, 4-3.

“I love being the giant killer,” said Jason Boyce, 40, who starred in soccer at Corona del Mar High in the late 20th century.

Now Outbreak FC is on the verge of history. The most recent colossal upset in the U.S. Cup was in 2008, when an undermanned group called Hollywood United beat the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer, 3-2.

What Outbreak FC is attempting is not as dramatic as what Leicester City did. The English soccer club this season overcame 5,000-to-1 odds to win the Premier League championship.

But it’s pretty dramatic.

Two of the players on Outbreak – Trent Bryson and Boyce – have been playing against each other on fields in Orange County since they were 12, in 1988. That’s longer than any of the Sounders U-23 players have been alive. By six years.

Two other Outbreak players – Will Sanchez and Oscar Aguero – couldn’t get much time off work, so on Wednesday afternoon they’ll fly to the game and Uber to the stadium. Bryson, the player/manager and CEO of the financial office where this dream started, hopes they make it in time because Aguero is in the starting lineup.

Another Outbreak starter – Tomer Konowiecki – can’t make it to the game because he’s on a family vacation in London.

Bryson has big plans no matter who shows up. He doesn’t seem concerned that the Sounders are younger, faster and have far better reputations as soccer players. He hasn’t looked at film, nor does he know the name of any player on the Sounders team.

“We can win,” he said. “There’s no reason we can’t.”

Boyce is the only Outbreak FC player with professional experience, but that came in the 1990s. He played with the Colorado Rapids and Miami Fusion of the MLS. Boyce seems pretty confident Outbreak FC is going to win.

“We’ve beaten teams that are dramatically younger than us,” he said. “They look at us like we’re a bunch of older guys. We – deceptively – have some speed. We’re not half bad. Our team has a lot of character. We’ve got a lot of successful, hardworking businessmen. And that success transfers onto the pitch.”

Boyce was once a member of the Sounders, before that club was in Major League Soccer, and a teammate of Seattle’s coach, Darren Sawatzky.

“He’ll have respect for us,” Boyce said. “He knows I’m playing.”

Outbreak FC almost didn’t get this far.

In the final qualifying game, they gave up a goal in the final minute of regulation time to tie the score at 2-2.

Bryson had used all of his substitutes, and his old team was exhausted.

“My first thought was: How are we going to do this for another half hour?” he said. “We had a pretty somber sideline.”

But in the second minute of overtime, Konowiecki took a shot and it caromed to Boyce. He drove it past the goaltender, setting off a wild celebration.

“We caught them by surprise,” Bryson said.

The bad news was that Outbreak FC still had 28 minutes to play.

Somehow they scored another goal and gave up only one.

They tried to celebrate, but that didn’t go so well. Many of the players had their children with them, so they needed to find a restaurant that served beer that was also OK for kids. They ended up at Hof’s Hut in Long Beach, hoisting a few pints.

“It was a school night,” Bryson said. “So we couldn’t stay late.”

In Seattle, Bryson said his team will be traveling with about 10 family members. So it shouldn’t be too difficult to find someplace to toast.

“If we don’t win, we’re going to go have a beer to celebrate a great season,” he said.

Contact the writer: ksharon@ocregister.com