Akindele won the 2016 Open Cup with FC Dallas and is now competing in the 106-year-old tournament’s Quarterfinals for the fourth time in six years. Remarkably, Akindele’s teams have compiled an 11W-2L-1D record in the event. This year, he and OCSC opened with a 3-1 victory at USL Championship outfit Memphis 901, then took a dramatic 2-1 extra time home win over the New England Revolution in the Round of 16. Akindele scored what turned out to be that game’s decider, a close-range poke that deflected past Matt Turner, to send Orlando City to only their second appearance in a Quarterfinal.

Better Than the Revs

“I thought we played better than they did, to be honest,” Akindele said of the Revolution game. “We had the better chances before we ended up scoring. I got the game-winning goal. I got kind of lucky, but they say you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”

After Akindele’s goal, OCSC creator Sacha Kljestan and Revolution coach Bruce Arena appeared to engage in a verbal dispute. “I don’t know how much they got into it,” Akindele said. “I think it was a little misunderstanding. I rolled my ankle a bit and everyone was unsure if was I hurt or not. So they were talking but I don’t think it was anything serious. But it shows this tournament means something. Sacha and Bruce Arena are huge names and for them to get fired up over a game shows how important the tournament is.”

It took 120 minutes, but @OrlandoCitySC was able to push past @NERevolution for its second-straight quarterfinal appearance. They will host @NYCFC on July 10.#USOC2019 | 📺 Highlights pic.twitter.com/tEowq6h5E4 — U.S. Open Cup (@opencup) June 20, 2019



Akindele received early lessons in the significance of the Open Cup while playing for FC Dallas. “It’s the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup,” Akindele said, referring to the late father of FC Dallas investors Clark and Dan Hunt. “And that makes it an even bigger tournament for the owners. Also, winning it with the club that was invested in it, the owners were celebrating with us every step of the way. They got us all rings and they made sure we knew how much it meant.”

In Akindele’s first season with the Hoops, they were eliminated at home by the Philadelphia Union via a penalty shootout (Akindele converted his attempt) in the Semifinals in 2014. Two years later, Akindele and FC Dallas took away victories over the Houston Dynamo in the Quarters and LA Galaxy in the last four before capturing the 2016 Open Cup title with a 4-2 home victory over the Revolution.