Beyond the 90 Podcast

While there were no cupsets on the first day of the fourth round of the 2025 US Open Cup, three of the five matches nearly had some, as the first two matches were pushed into Extra Time. One barely edged the other in the Tennessee Derby, the visitors dominated the home side in the Rocky Mountains and in the final one of the night a penalty thwarted the last MLS Next Pro side in the Pacific Northwest.

It was great action from all five matches on day one and we are previewing the second day as well.

On the early week edition of The Third Half:

Mark Briggs was announced Head Coach for Birmingham Legion. We talk about the hire and the draw in St. Pete with the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Rhode Island finally has their first home game at Tidewater Landing, at least the opening ceremonies were good?

El Paso Locomotive and North Carolina run their opposition off the pitch.

Sunday was not a good day for the officials. Let’s talk about how Oakland Roots and Miami FC were robbed.

The video gives details about a prospective project that we’ve been floating to a number of people in the game.

Chalk this one up to constantly learning things and seeing new things happen when actions are taken. We’ve theorized for years about how promotion and relegation would help the game in the United States, but one piece that I never thought about was the potential consolidation of independent youth clubs, and strong standalone academy structures to professional clubs in their area to create a direct pathway to pro with increased resource resources for facilities, tactical training, tactical, teaching, and coaching excellence.

This appears to be happening in USL already.

Beyond the 90 is a reader supported publication where the majority of our community members have significant involvement in the domestic game here in the United States.

We never had problems until the last few weeks in our comment section and unfortunately I’ve had to take action as a result. I’m very sorry I dropped the ball on this- I should be monitoring the comments more carefully I admit.

Please watch this video and understand the ground rules for commenting in the future.

Thank you for your continued support of BT90.

Going from supporter to writer. Some tips from personal experiences and some of the mistakes I’ve made in the past.

The situation is fluid, but there are some conclusions that can be drawn from what has transpired in the last few months.

On this late week edition of The Third Half:

We take a look at the Gainbridge announcement and I give my thoughts on this massive news for the USL.

Buffalo has announced a stadium site for their home ground. Lets take a look at the pluses and minuses.

Louisville City and Lexington have announced partnerships. What do they mean?

Louisville City and Lexington also announced what they will be playing for as this new rivalry takes off.

I also take a look at the recent signings in the league and recap the two midweek fixtures.

As a reminder, due to travel this weekend there will be no early week edition of The Third Half. I do sincerely apologize and our regular schedule will resume with the late week edition.

I do apologize for any background noise that may have been picked up during recording.

As always, thank you for your support of both The Third Half and Beyond the 90.

How should the USL professional ecosystem be structured with PRO/REL? Some ideas here.

President Trump is unlikely to have a huge impact on whether people travel to World Cup 2026 or not as many of the concerns I have heard about coming to the United States predated his election, but the immigration and tariff situations as well as the uncertainties created by Trump’s policy meandering about are already negatively impacting the sport in this country.

One potential positive is that a weakening dollar may lead to more foreign clubs touring the United States. Increasing inflation may help USL but the potential of stagflation which could come from a protectionist economic policy could be disastrous for the professional game in this country.

We get into all of this in this video answering your questions.