But with our 2-1 win over Ocala Stampede last night, Orlando City is again in the third round. And this time, we will get the first time we will host an MLS side in a match that matters.

This is enormous.

The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup is our route to higher competition. And this time, they will be here with the full support of their fans.

Tickets will be available on the website soon. You can always call to check at 855-675-2489. If you don’t want to wait, they are already available through Ticketmaster with the interactive seat map. If that’s the case, they should be available at Walgreen’s, too.

DIRECTIONS: The match will be at Forest High School in the southeast portion of Ocala. To get there, take Florida’s Turnpike all the way to I-75 northbound. Continue about another 15-20 minutes to exit 350, which is SR 200, and turn right (east). Follow that to SW 17th St. (SR 464) and turn right. The road will eventually veer right and become SE Maricamp Road. Forest High School is at 5000 SE Maricamp Rd., on the right side. It’s 6.5 miles from SR 200, and 8.5 miles from I-75.

PRO TIPS: This is for the supporters. Ocala Stampede is a faith-based organization. No obscenities, and no YSA. As typical for a road match, any sort of smoke or flare would be highly ill-advised, especially since we’ll be playing at a public school.

I will be heading up early to have dinner before the game. I will be at the Buffalo Wild Wings on SR 200, likely around 5pm. It’s before you get to SR 464, so it’ll be a great place to stage for the match.

After a draw that included an allowed goal by Harrisburg that was far offside, Orlando has some more frustration to take out on Rochester Rhinos tonight.

How much further can the Rhinos fall? Their fans haven’t cared in a while, but at least in the past the team was still competitive. Now they are having an epically bad season.

Same match preview as the Harrisburg match last night, and the usual watch party locations.

If there is a real rivalry for our team within USL Pro, it is with the City Islanders. The team we beat for the 2011 USL Pro Championship.

We have a rough road going into our coming U.S. Open Cup opener in Ocala on Tuesday night. Shall we begin?

Orlando City has a match preview for both this match and tomorrow night’s match against Rochester.

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The Ruckus and the ILF will have watch parties at the usual locations.

Tickets are $8, and admission is not included with the T-PASS season ticket t-shirt. You can buy them at the gate, or go to the website.

The Lions dominated all afternoon long, beating the Seattle Sounders Reserves, 2-0, in front of 2,300 at Cheney Stadium.

The Sounders reserves were seemingly stacked, with Steve Zakuani and Shalrie Joseph in the midfield and Eriq Zavaleta up front. But they couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn yesterday; only two of their 12 shots were on-target, and both were saved by Gallardo.

Meanwhile, Orlando City had six shots on goal, with Dom Dwyer getting two goals (4′, 52′) to widen his lead atop the Golden Boot race with 10 goals.

The crowd wasn’t bad, considering Tacoma didn’t have much notice before the match.

Orlando has a back-to-back this weekend on the road, playing in Harrisburg on Friday night, and Rochester on Saturday night. Both matches are at 7pm, with supporters’ watch parties at the usual spots.

And don’t forget to head to Seminole Soccer Complex in West Sanford on Tuesday night as Orlando City U-23 opens their season with a U.S. Open Cup match against VSI Tampa Bay FC. Game time for that is 7pm.

Orlando City will be without TV for the only time this season.

Even though Cheney Stadium in Tacoma is nominally home of the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers, and ought to have the facilities for streaming.

As I said when the move was revealed, the Sounders want to gauge the support in Tacoma for pro soccer. There are rumors that the next step for the MLS-USL alliance is for the Western Conference teams to sponsor and/or create USL teams in their markets.

With an expansion team already set for Sacramento that would make a perfect pair for San Jose, it is believed the Cascadia Cup (Seattle, Portland, Vancouver) will create their own USL Pro teams, maybe as soon as next season. It would doubtlessly finally fill out a western swing for the third tier, which historically has had an east coast bias.

The big deal with the Sounders Reserves is their goalkeeper, Marcus Hahnemann. Formerly a U.S. national, he spent over a decade in England, most prominently with Reading. In the 2005-06 season, Reading gave up just 32 goals as he led them to a second-tier record of 106 points and promotion to the Premier League. He kept 13 clean sheets in 2006-07 in the Premier League, third overall (behind Pepe Reina with 19 and Tim Howard with 14) for the season, and registered 139 saves over the 2007 calendar year.

Radio stream will be available at http://live.soundersfc.com.

English midfielder Paul Clowes is a freshman at Clemson University, but grew up in the Manchester City academy system. (Yes, they have an academy system; they don’t buy all their talent.) Prior to leaving for the U.S., he played in the new UEFA Youth League, a U-19 level shadow competition for teams competing in the UEFA Champions League.

Midfielder David Graydon comes from Montverde Academy in Lake County, and is a sophomore at Saint Louis University. During his sophomore year, he had 2 goals and 7 assists. In his senior year at Montverde, Graydon tallied 10 goals and 18 assists, was an ESPNHS All-American and Top 150 recruit, and led his school to a state title.

Midfielder Michael Annarumma is a graduating senior from Hofstra University, via Massapequa High School on Long Island, New York.

Defender Ian Svantesson is a graduating senior from Lyman High School in Longwood.

Defender Michael Millay was a key player at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, and is a junior at Cincinnati currently. His past season, he played all but 90 minutes in their matches.

Defender Andrew Clare is a sophomore at University of Tampa, coming through the IMG Soccer Academy.

Midfielder Jehov Pardo de Figueroa helped bring Celebration High School to prominence in soccer. A graduating senior with them this year, in 2011 he had 8 goals and 7 assists as they advanced to the State Semifinal.

Orlando City U-23′s first match is their U.S. Open Cup first round match. They will host VSI Tampa Bay FC of USL Pro at Seminole Soccer Complex on Tuesday, May 14, at 7pm. Their T-Pass season ticket is not valid for this match by USSF rules; tickets for the match are $8.

Pressure has been growing, particularly from prominent Tebow die-hards like Orlando Sentinel sports columnist Mike Bianchi and ESPN analyst Skip Bayless, for the Jaguars to sign him anyway.

The reasons are myriad. They range from the judgment that he’s better than Blaine Gabbert or Chad Henne (and yet nobody else is interested), to the myth that they need him to sell tickets (even though they have been far ahead of both the Dolphins and the Bucs in attendance for years).

With Orlando attorney John Morgan adding to the pressure with a YouTube video, real Jaguars fans have had enough.

Yes, the Jacksonville Jaguars have fans. (That they don’t is yet another myth.)

If you follow my blog, you already know about the Bold City Brigade, their new supporters’ group. Last night they launched a new website, evenifhesreleased.com. It’s simply a click counter to count people who do not want Tim Tebow on the Jacksonville Jaguars.

As of this posting, it has counted over 75,000 clicks.

This is not a judgment on Tim Tebow the person. We do not hate Tim Tebow. He is a good man who does good things.

He’s just not that good a quarterback. If he were really that good, then why hasn’t anybody else snapped him up? As for us, David Caldwell was involved in the Falcons’ drafting and development of Matt Ryan. I trust his judgment in the matter more than that of the local ambulance chaser and a hack writer.

Tim Tebow himself is not the primary problem. The problem is the media circus that surrounds him. Personally, I’m convinced they are attracted to him because he is a good, God-fearing Christian young man who wears his faith on his sleeve. And they are waiting for him to do something bad or hypocritical, so they can jump on him and pound him into the ground.

That media circus may be disrupting Tebow’s development for all we know. Joining the Jaguars would not change that; it might even make matters worse.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are trying to build themselves back into the great teams of the 1990s and early 2000s. We do not need that distraction. And nobody outside is going to change our minds.

Now to answer the biggest misconception: We do not have an attendance problem.

The big part of this misconception is caused by EverBank Field, which is enormous at 76,867. But looking back at NFL attendance numbers, as far back as ESPN has those stats, the Jaguars have had attendance in the 60,000s all but one year. 2009 was an aberration, resulting from the economic downturn combined with a terrible 2008 campaign.

The team’s attendance quickly recovered, and is now far from the bottom. They consistently outdraw the Bucs, and in recent years even the Dolphins. They were 20th out of 32 teams in 2012, with an average attendance higher than the Chicago Bears has capacity for at Soldier Field.

Wayne Weaver was always committed to Jacksonville, and when it was time for him to sell the team, he specifically looked for an owner who would resist the media and outside-fan pressure to move the team to Los Angeles. That is why he sold to Shahid Khan; his car part import business practically owns the Port of Jacksonville, so he has a commitment to the city. The Jaguars are not going anywhere. (As for the Dolphins, however…)

The Jacksonville Jaguars simply do not want Tim Tebow. Neither do their true fans. And we’re not going to allow the media to get their way. The Jaguars will be fine without Tim Tebow. And so will Tim Tebow.

Dom Dwyer was named USL Pro Player of the Week this past week for his hat trick against Antigua. Rob Valentino was also named to the Team of the Week.

Dwyer currently has 8 goals, to lead the league. Jamie Watson is second, with 4 goals.

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The draw for the second round of the 2013 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup has taken place.

On Tuesday, May 21, Orlando City will host either Ocala Stampede of the PDL, or the USASA amateur team Red Force of Miami.

Meanwhile, Orlando City U-23 hosts VSI Tampa Bay FC on Tuesday night, May 14, to open the first round. The winner of that match will host the Tampa Bay Rowdies on Tuesday, May 21.