The Coffee Pot Cup Returns
How a $47 coffee urn etched its way into American soccer history
It’s August 4th, 1999, and Eddie Pope is furious.
He and his DC United teammates have just traveled 530 miles to Charleston, South Carolina for an Open Cup matchup with the Charleston Battery. Though United are missing a few key players away on international duty, they do have Pope, National Soccer Hall of Famer Jaime Moreno, three-time MLS All Star Roy Lassiter, and a host of other starters from their usual lineup.
They are the first MLS dynasty, having won the first two MLS Cups in 1996 and 1997. They made the final in 1998, and in a few more months, they’ll win their third title in 1999. Just a week from now, they’ll host and win the CONCACAF Champions League, the first American team to do so. They were the first MLS team to win the Open Cup in 1996.
But on this night in Charleston, they’ve lost.
The A-League’s Charleston Battery have defeated mighty MLS side DC United, 4-3 after extra time. Ivaylo Ilarionov scored a dramatic tying goal in the 87th minute and the golden goal winner in the 101st minute. The USSF post-game report would call it “one of the biggest upsets ever seen in American soccer history.”
Pope sits in his locker, steaming with frustration. He’s surrounded by equally furious teammates. They’re the kings of American soccer, how could they lose? And of all the teams to lose to, that team?
Someone punches a locker. A shower head is pulled from the wall. Then another. A coffee pot flies through the air, shattering on the floor. DC United are in full meltdown mode, as they vent their frustrations on the Blackbaud Stadium visiting locker room.
Or so the story goes.
“The Battery kind of downplayed it, but a news article and the acknowledgment by a couple of players of the time were enough to make us run with it.” recalled Mike Buytas, president of a Battery supporters group called The Regiment. “I recently heard a $10,000 number on damages, but I’m not sure how much.”
Detailing damages to that locker room on August 4th is hard. Detailing just how massive this upset was is even harder. But every iteration of the legend includes the detail of the broken coffee pot, bringing to life one of the stranger rivalry trophies in American soccer.
The Coffee Pot Cup, as it’s come to be known, was born from that Open Cup matchup in ‘99. But the physical trophy wouldn’t come into existence until the teams faced off again in a 2004 preseason tournament in Charleston.
The idea for a trophy, said Buytas, stemmed from a thread on BigSoccer.com. “There was no real social media at the time and Bigsoccer was the mecca for all things soccer. It's still active today and you can read the thread.”
Sure enough, the thread does exist. Though the image links are long since gone, a user called Sachin proposed the idea for a coffee urn to be passed between the teams as a trophy.
“Sachin Shah and Lonnie Hovis from DC, and me and Jim Gregory were the ones who kind of put it together,” Buytas recalled. “Sachin bought the actual coffee ‘pot,’ which was really an urn, on eBay for $47.”
Fans from both sides of the rivalry raised funds to purchase the urn and have it adorned with a small silver plaque. And when DC United defeated Charleston 2-1 in the following friendly, Battery fans filled the urn with beer and presented it to the Screaming Eagles supporter group.
While the teams met nearly annually in friendlies and preseason tournaments, the next competitive match wouldn’t come for a few more years. It would prove to be the biggest of them all.
It’s September 3rd, 2008, and Jeff Uyak has one thing on his mind: revenge.
“They violated our space, disrespected the first soccer specific stadium of the modern era,” said Uyak, who’s been a season ticket holder for over 20 years. “They thought we were little fish…we wanted to show them up and shut them up even more.”
In the decade since that fateful meeting in 1999, DC United and Charleston had met just once in the Open Cup, a 4-0 United beatdown of the Battery in 2000. From its inception in 2004, the Coffee Pot Cup had never seen a competitive match. That was about to change.
Charleston and DC were set to face off in the Open Cup Final.
The Battery had already knocked out MLS squads Dallas and Houston and became, at the time, just the second lower division club to reach the final since the introduction of MLS. The first had been Rochester Rhinos, who won the tournament the same year as Charleston's famous upset. Only Sacramento Republic’s run to the 2022 final has equaled the feat.
Charleston bussed nearly 300 fans to RFK Stadium for the occasion, and each side grabbed an early goal for a 1-1 halftime scoreline. But United found a winner early in the second half to claim their second Open Cup title.
“A little disappointment for not beating DC, but we were about .500 that season,” said Uyak. “Great exposure for the club and players. That exposure opened the door to some guys.”
Indeed, the door did open for Battery players to move to bigger opportunities. Ozzie Alonso, who played in the ‘08 final with Charleston, would sign with newly formed MLS team Seattle Sounders the following season, where he’d go on to become a four-time Open Cup winner and four-time MLS All-Star.
The ties between MLS and lower division leagues have long been tenuous, at best. Many in MLS see leagues like USL as development grounds, nothing more than a loose minor league system. Teams like Charleston exist simply to grow the next wave of stars like Alonso. Opening that system would destabilize everything MLS has been trying to build for more than three decades.
Lower division teams see the gap in quality between leagues narrowing, and the lack of promotion opportunities as a frustrating roadblock to even greater growth. If given the opportunity, they could compete with DC, Seattle, and the rest of the First Division. The resources and finances might not be equal yet, but they could be in the future. If only given the chance. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle.
USL is, of course, mounting a challenge for Division One status, meaning all that power dynamic could soon change. But until that day, the only place for lower league teams to meaningfully test their mettle against MLS competition is the Open Cup. It’s the only place a weird and wonderful trophy like the Coffee Pot Cup can naturally exist. It’s where players like Ilarionovc can write their names into the hearts of fans for decades.
And now, another legend is about to be written.
It’s May 6th, 2025, and Juan David Torres has just floated a pass directly onto the foot of Cal Jennings.
Jennings slips past a defender, shakes off pressure from another, shifts the ball to his right foot, and slots it into the back of the net. The crowd at Audi Field falls into a stunned silence. Charleston 2, DC 1. It’s happened again. The Coffee Pot is headed back to South Carolina.
Or so the story could go.
Tuesday night, the rivalry resumes in the Open Cup round of 32. For Charleston, it’ll be an opportunity to defeat an MLS opponent in a competitive match for the first time since a 2013 Open Cup victory over San Jose Earthquakes. For DC, it’s a chance to advance deeper in a tournament they’ve won three times since 1996.
And the ties between these clubs are more than just the trophy. DC United manager Troy Lesesne grew up in South Carolina and made 30 appearances for the Black and Yellow. Right back Derek Dodson was a key figure in Charleston’s 2023 turnaround season, when the club improved by 34 points from the prior year and reached the USL Cup final. He’s made 6 appearances this season for DC.
Battery players Luis Zamudio and Houssou Landry both spent time with DC United before becoming starters in Charleston. But of course, the team’s fan bases are ultimately tied together by a silver coffee urn. And both teams feature players younger than the trophy itself, a testament to the longevity of the rivalry.
On paper, DC United are the favored team. Even with a 3-3-5 start to the 2025 MLS campaign, they’ll be expected to win when the game kicks off at 7:00 pm at Audi Field. But they haven’t kept a clean sheet in their last 7 games, which could prove important in this fixture.
Because Charleston is coming in hot. Winners of 6 or their last 8 games, the Battery are averaging 2.25 goals per game in that stretch. They’ve both dominated games from the jump and won twice after conceding the first goal.
American soccer needs more stories like the Coffee Pot Cup. Legendary stories, passed from barstool to tailgate to supporter section, growing a little more dramatic with each retelling. Stories where the facts and stats matter far less than the emotional highs and disappointing lows.
Legendary names like Moreno and Alonso, Pope and Anhaeuser, and, maybe soon, Jennings and Benteke. And, just as importantly, names we’ll never know. Exactly who threw the coffee pot across Blackbaud Stadium’s visiting locker room in 1999? We’ll probably never know. But does it really matter?
Legendary memories that are etched into the minds of fans as sharply as scores are etched onto silver plaques, adorning a $47 coffee urn purchased from eBay.
The next story is about to be written. Let’s see how this one goes.
