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This is the first of a series on the U.S. Open Cup.

The first 99 years of U.S. Open Cup history are not only the story of American club soccer. It is the story of the modern United States.

For the uninitiated, the Open Cup (formerly known as the National Challenge Cup, now called the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup) is a national competition open to any sanctioned U.S. soccer club on any level and in any league. It is a knockout tournament — akin to the N.C.A.A. basketball tourney. It has included as many as 186 clubs in any given year. The winner has been awarded the Dewar Trophy — a gift from the Scottish distiller Thomas Dewar to an American federation in the early 1900s. When the U.S. became part of FIFA in 1914, one of the first acts was to assemble and promote a national tournament modeled after the English F.A. Cup. It has been around since.

Part 1 of this slide-show series — 1914 to 1938 — defines the tournament. Professional teams and top players from all over the world participated. Rivalries so fierce that broken bones, police intervention and large crowds were common. St. Louis, New York, New England and Bethlehem, Pa., became Cup hotspots. Team owners like Charles Schwab dedicated themselves to winning the tournament. With all this drama, growing national interest was no coincidence.

As a national competition that ranks among the oldest in the world — and a professional North American sports trophy second only to ice hockey’s Stanley Cup in age — the U.S. Open Cup deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as our other great sporting tournaments. Sadly, it seldom is.

American soccer players, clubs and supporters have always faced adversity: xenophobia, discrimination, ignorance and disrespect. It is no coincidence the tournament that signifies soccer faced similar challenges. Top-flight leagues alternated between fighting, ignoring and reluctantly participating in the Open Cup. Jingoistic attacks on immigrants haunted it. The U.S. sports and soccer establishment sometimes still scorn it.

Discounted, disdained and disregarded, the Open Cup lives on. Invisible as it might be to the general public, it remains the backbone of American soccer.

Consider the players: Stark, Gonsalves, Patenaude, McNabb, Gaetjens, Barr, Keough, Mendoza, Harkes, Ramos, Lalas, Donovan, McBride and Dempsey, to name a few.

From the Seattle Sounders to Bethlehem Steel, Fall River Rovers to the Tampa Bay Rowdies and the Los Angeles Galaxy to United German Hungarians — the Cup connects, defines and frames the game.

Play begins in the 100th US Open Cup on Tuesday, May 7.

For all American soccer people, it is the story of us.

Ted Westervelt spent 15 years in politics before he began to passionately promote American soccer history, promotion and relegation, and independence for U.S. clubs. Follow him on Twitter.