Wisconsin Soccer Central

There would have been ample time over the past week for the players on the Chicago Fire's Premier Development League team to discuss the U.S. Open Cup, to talk about their second-round match against the Madison 56ers or a potential third-round game against Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City in their brand new stadium.

After all, the Fire were on the road plenty after playing their first-round Open Cup match last Tuesday in West Des Moines, Iowa, with league matches Thursday in Louisville, Kent., and Saturday in Cincinnati before returning home.

But Fire coach Mark Spooner was having none of it.

"I banned all talk of it until today," Spooner said Monday afternoon. "We tried to focus on what we had to do in the league. Now we can look forward to it."

Tuesday night's match between the Fire and the 56ers at Breese Stevens Field is one of two second-round games that pit amateur teams against one another. There are six amateur sides remaining in the tournament, with the team that advances the furthest winning a $10,000 prize.

While that money would go a long way toward helping the 56ers' bottom line, getting a chance to play Sporting Kansas City next Tuesday at Livestrong Sporting Park  – a $200 million stadium that opened two weeks ago  – is a major motivation for the players on both sides.

"Both teams will be more than fired up for it, I would imagine," Spooner said. "There's not a whole lot as a coach you need to say during a time like that. The guys have to be able to get themselves up for something like this, and the reward's there for both teams."

The Fire, who are 5-2-1 and in second place in the Great Lakes Division of the PDL's Central Conference, beat the Des Moines Menace of the PDL 1-0 in their first-round match on Chris Estridge's 87th-minute goal.

The Wake Forest midfielder also scored the goal that secured the Fire's Open Cup berth in PDL qualifying, a 90th-minute strike to beat the River City Rovers 1-0 on May 28.

"Hopefully he can continue that run," Spooner said of Estridge, who has a team-high five goals overall.

Chicago has a young team, with many players eligible to play at the Under-20 level. After beating the Menace last week, the Fire lost to the River City Rovers 2-1 in Louisville and beat the Cincinnati Kings 3-0.

"It's been an eventful 10 days, that's for sure," Spooner said. "I think we've only been in Chicago for one day out of the last 10.

"We've rotated as much as we possibly can. We don't have a never-ending roster of players, but we certainly rested guys where we could and rotated them in and out a little bit."

The Fire have several players with Wisconsin ties.

Creighton midfielder Andrew Ribeiro (Green Bay Notre Dame) has been a regular for the team, while Marquette midfielder Bryan Ciesiulka has seen some action. Spooner said that University of Wisconsin forward Chris Prince would be making the trip to Madison for the match. Another Marquette midfielder, Calum Mallace, also is on the roster, but hasn't played because of injury.

Prince played against the 56ers at Breese Stevens on May 28 in a National Premier Soccer League Midwest Division match, a 2-1 win for Chicago. The Fire has several developmental teams, including one in the NPSL, and moves players from team to team as warranted.

Thanks to that NPSL match, Spooner said he has a "decent" scouting report on the 56ers. But he doesn't expect it to mean much.

"I don't think you can really go with a scouting report, because league and cup play are two completely different animals," he said. "It's a one-off game, and you always hear about any team can beat any team on any given day."

56ers coach Jim Launder acknowledged that on this day, his team will be trying to pull off a bit of an upset.

"It might be the first game this year where we're maybe out-talented in terms of fitness and technical talent," said Launder, who is familiar with many of the Fire players thanks to his roles as a U.S. Youth Soccer Region II Olympic Development Program coach and a U.S. Soccer national staff coach.

"I felt (first-round opponent AAC Eagles) was probably technically better than us, but they couldn't keep up fitness-wise. I think this team technically will have a bit of an edge on us and probably be as fit as us. So I would say we're underdogs."

Launder expected to have nearly a full squad to choose from, including midfielder Trevor Banks (Madison Memorial), who missed the 4-0 victory over AAC Eagles because he was out of town due to other personal commitments, and veteran defender Reed Cooper (Madison West), who made the trip from his home in St. Louis and played in Saturday's 2-1 NPSL loss to the Milwaukee Bavarians.

Leading scorer Jed Hohlbein (Middleton/UW), who had two goals an assist in the first round, didn't play Saturday, nor did starting attacking midfielder Andrew Wiedabach (Mequon Homestead).

One possible area of concern, though, is in goal. Kyle Dillman (Madison La Follette) is the 56ers' only healthy keeper, as UW's Max Jentsch (Hartland Arrowhead) had a recurrence of back issues last week – he missed the entire spring season for the Badgers because of a herniated disc. UW-Parkside's Ryan Onwukwe is still sidelined by a finger injury, and UW-Platteville's Jared Kuehl (Oregon/MATC) wasn't registered in time for the Open Cup.

From the touchline

The Fire's goalkeeper is David Meves, who was the starter for Akron's NCAA championship team last fall. He has a 0.40 goals-against average and four shutouts in league play. "(He) has been around the program for a couple years now. Good, solid keeper," Spooner said. "He's nice to have behind the back four." ... Spooner is a native of Derby, England, and came up through the Crewe Alexandra youth academy. He also spent time at Northampton Town before coming to the U.S. to play at NCAA Division I Niagara in New York. Spooner, whose father, Steve, is the Under-18 manager at Birmingham City FC, was an assistant at Niagara and Longwood (Va.) before taking over the Kalamazoo Outrage of the PDL in 2009. ... The other four amateur teams still in the Open Cup are the New York Pancyprian Freedoms and three PDL teams, Real Colorado Foxes, Kitsap Pumas and the Ventura County Fusion.

More coverage

Wisconsin State Journal: Schneider, 56ers close to golden goal

TheCup.us: Bracket preview

U.S. Soccer: Results and schedule