By Kyle Coppola
Local Soccer Team Qualifies for 2024 U.S. Open Cup
Brave SC which is formerly The Villages SC will be competing in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup in 2024.
“It’s definitely a special competition for us,” head coach and co-founder Anderson DaSilva said. “It gives us a big opportunity to play against professional teams and I think it benefits our players a lot to play against those higher-level teams.”
The Buffalo qualified for the competition based on their regular season finish and southeast Division title in 2023.
Founded in 1913, the U.S. Open Cup is the oldest ongoing soccer competition in the United States. The modern format includes roughly 100 teams from each tier of the American soccer pyramid, including 32 non-professional and pre-professional teams from USL League Two, the National Premier League, UPSL, the National Amateur Cup and local qualifiers.
Brave SC previously competed in the Open Cup five times as The Villages SC and three times prior to that as the Ocala Stampede. The club won their opening-round game in each of its last wo appearances in 2019 and 2022.
The first rounds of knockout competition wil take place March 19-21. The club will share details on its first game of the U.S. Open Cup when they are available.
For more information on Brave SC and the club’s U.S. Open Cup history, visit bravest.com. For media inquiries, contact Brave SC Director of Communications Drew Chaltry at drew@bravesc.com.
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
