Blackouts, Concussions, Faulty Nets: SC Vistula Garfield beats FC Motown in chaotic Open Cup qualifier

Sometimes, a game is more than a game. Sometimes, enough stuff goes wrong that it goes right. Sometimes, a game that could end up meaning nothing means so much more.

On Sunday, October 4, SC Vistula Garfield faced FC Motown in the Second Round of Open Division qualifying for the 2027 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.

A match far removed from the actual tournament, as 128 amateur teams played across the country this past weekend all looking to inch closer to earning one of 16 qualifying slots for next year's Open Cup competition. It will take winning during the Fourth Round of qualifying in late November to earn one of those 16 spots.

At a glance, it would be easy to just say Vistula came away with a 5-3 win in extra time on Sunday night in Garfield, New Jersey, one win out of 63 qualifiers played over that weekend (plus one forfeit).

Instead, this game included almost everything you could think of for non-league soccer in the United States. Field issues, injuries, a comeback win, red cards, "ultras" posted up a few feet behind the benches, and so much more.

A game that I was just supposed to write a brief blurb about for TheCup.us spiraled into whatever this article ends up being. Vistula goal scorer and attacker Emiland Elezaj said it best after the match when speaking with me.

"There's not much I can say, but there's something I can say that will wrap this whole thing up: the magic of the Open Cup."

Wobbly goals delay kickoff

The match at Garfield High School in Bergen County, New Jersey, didn't get off to a great start. It actually didn't get off to a scheduled start at all, with kickoff delayed 30 minutes after the match officials and US Soccer match commissioner noticed something wrong with both of the goals on the field.

They were wobbling. A lot. To the point where a gust of wind or a push turned what should have been a 90-degree angle into something either acute or obtuse.

Home side Vistula started scrambling as Motown, its owner Dan Karosen, and head coach Toure Weaver watched on. Motown, a side which had won a national title in the National Premier Soccer League in 2022, is no stranger to Open Cup shenanigans.

In 2022, in the first Open Cup post-Covid-19 pandemic, the side lost in its First Round match before a successful appeal regarding an illegal substitution made by their opponents. FC Motown ended up winning the replay, eventually reaching the Third Round and coming one penalty shootout away from playing New York City FC.

The following year in the 2023 First Round, another loss was appealed due to an undersized field being used. But Motown lost that one.

The NPSL side was now sitting and watching, waiting for a qualifying match knowing they needed to win to advance somehow. FC Motown had been to the last eight US Open Cup tournaments dating back to 2017, with a qualification to the cancelled 2020 tournament as well. But poor results in the NPSL and a stumble in USL League Two meant they needed to play in qualifying if the streak was to continue.

Eventually, the goals crisis was averted. The referees found suitable replacements nets one field over, just needing to wait for a youth soccer event to finish up.

Disastrous start for the home team

The match kicked off at 7:30 pm, 30 minutes behind schedule.

Motown came off the starting line quickly, scoring in the fifth minute to take the lead. A takeaway in the Garfield end by Julian Gomez allowed for a quick setup pass to Gianfranco Vitella with the ball. He arched a shot from distance over Garfield keeper Aldo Munoz and put the visitors up a goal early.

It was a great start for Motown, who came into the match looking more like an NCAA Division III All-Star team than its usual self. The side only had a handful of starters from its league team, thanks to last-minute vacations, players flying to Miami for a cash prize tournament, and even an 11th hour defection by the team's starting goalkeeper to Lansdowne Yonkers FC the week of this match.

For the home side, it was another slow start. Vistula Garfield had trailed 1-0 at the half in the first qualifying round before four unanswered goals pushed them through. Vistula had been making a habit of starting games slow, trailing or looking disorganized. It almost felt like a given.

Founded in 1952 as a Polish athletic organization and a cultural institution with Open Cup records dating back to the 1970s, the team in the 2020s has not been consistent. In recent years, player-coach Christopher Karcz, a former 2005 MLS Supplemental Draft pick who was later signed by the New York Red Bulls (Red Bull New York now), has continued to try and improve the men's team. It's the same club his father played for, and the same one he continues to help as a youth coach, as well.

In recent years, this Vistula group was known for lower-table finishes in the American Premier Soccer League, and dancing with relegation from that league has made them seem like smaller dogs. That was true until last fall, when the team that was struggling in its league won enough games to qualify for the 2026 US Open Cup, where Vistula even took an early lead against One Knoxville SC of USL League One on this very same Garfield High School field.

While they lost that match, the club seemingly had a new face. But on Sunday, things got worse quickly. In the 16th minute, after being shown a yellow card, Matthew Fernandez resumed play and a few moments later back kicked the face of Motown’s Elijah Hope while the player was down. He was shown a second yellow card and sent off, leaving Vistula with 10 men and down 1-0 inside the first 30 minutes of the match.

It was the type of foul, or even series of fouls, that not even your teammates could defend you. As he left the field, someone on the bench calmly told Fernandez to "just get the f*** out of here". I'm not sure I saw him the rest of the night.

A dagger not struck deep enough

Motown capitalized on the player advantage, continuing the high-aggression offense that they used from the start. In the 20th minute, Motown's Tobias Catizone, assisted by Vitella, made it a 2-0 lead for the visitors.

It almost felt like the old days of the Garden State Soccer League, when both teams regularly squared off in the depths of state-level soccer. In those days, after Motown was established in 2012, the Morristown side was still the dominant force, winning the league nearly every year between 2014 and 2022. It was able to ride that momentum into national leagues and spotlights, while Vistula remained a quiet social club and academy. Motown was known for acquiring the best players from the teams it faced, sometimes even grabbing former professionals. Essentially, they were a mercenary side.

Now, in 2026, it felt as though history was repeating.

The game was not over, though. Vistula was given a lifeline when Motown’s Salvador Pliego, a former professional with a career in Europe and Asia, took down a Vistula's Emiland Elezaj cutting across the top of the 18-yard box. He was shown a yellow card and Elezaj converted the penalty kick in the 27th minute to make it 2-1 and cut into the Motown advantage.

Elezaj, a former New York Red Bull academy player, was probably the loudest player on the field all match. Arguing with Motown players, referees, even his own teammates and coaches about anything.

Maybe that energy was part of how his team stayed grounded, even while down a man. "Listen, I don't... something turned on for the guys," Elezaj said after the match, trying to hold himself back with a smile.

"The game wasn't going well for us. But we were fighting for the balls. We were fighting in the zone. We wanted it more. That's, that's all I can say."

From this point on, the Motown attack slowed down, helped by a now pumped up Vistula backline led by Chris Kondratowicz. While possession of the ball was still split evenly, Motown's fouls were becoming more apparent. Even up a man, it began to almost feel as though this was a "make it to the end" type of game for the team with an 11v10 advantage.

Lights go out, goals go in

As the second half rolled on, Motown started to accumulate yellow cards. By the hour mark, they were up to four while Garfield only had two still, the two that had left them down a man.

There were chances. Motown's Catizone had a shot saved by the Vistula keeper. A Garfield free kick threatened Motown keeper Anthony Montana but was skied between the football goal posts.

Then, the reality of playing at a high school stadium kicked in at exactly 9:00 pm ET on the dot, the 72nd minute, when the lights suddenly went out.

No one moved. For a moment, the thought that Motown might advance based on the game being abandoned felt real. For 150 seconds, a suddenly-expanding crowd behind the fence of both benches hurled grievances before the lights thankfully came back on. That crowd: Another subplot of this game.

It looked as though Vistula's pushing for an equalizer wasn't going to be enough. Montana had punched away Vistula's corner kicks, high shots, and more. The last-minute starter in goal for Motown was only out a clean sheet because of a penalty kick, and was playing quite well.

Then, chaos. Because what would a game be without three goals in four minutes?

In the 87th minute, after a Motown foul not far from the box, Elezaj stepped up for a free kick, sending a shot right past Montana, scoring the elusive equalizer to make it 2-2. His brace made extra time not just a real possibility, but an almost certainty. Right?

The game restarted after the goal, and I am personally trying to send an update to TheCup.us and speaking to the match commissioner. In the 88th minute, I look up to see FC Motown's Eli Crongale, a former Birmingham Legion FC player, has scored the go-ahead goal for his team.

It's now 3-2. Motown's players ran toward the bench and celebrated, enough so that the referee and fourth official had to warn the team from gathering on the field. There was still a game left to play.

I now refuse to take my eyes off the action, though I am relaying updates through text without looking at my phone.

Motown just needed to hold on. But what they couldn't have expected was the man who entered the match in the 84th minute, the 43-year-old Vistula player-coach Christopher Karcz.

A run down the left side of the field and long ball into the box found a leaping (how are his knees still good?) Karcz, who headed in a 90th-minute equalizer for SC Vistula, the team's second tying goal scored in four minutes.

It was 3-3 thanks to the former RBNY reserve team player, who I'd bet finishes as the oldest goal scorer in the Open Cup qualifying tournament this year.

"I wish everyone knew who Chris Karcz is, he's a veteran of this game. He does every single thing for this club," Elezaj said after the match about his coach. "Collecting the pinnies after training, to setting up everything, the roster. Everything that we need, he's just a club legend. There's not much more I can say about him."

The air was sucked out of Motown's lungs as Vistula ran to celebrate with its cheering, impromptu ultras section that had gathered behind their bench. It got worse for the visitors, as well. FC Motown's Osbin Mendez was shown a straight red card at 90'+2' for denial of a goal-scoring opportunity during a Vistula run towards goal down the left side of the field. 

So to set the scene: It was 10v10 and there were now 30 extra minutes of soccer to play. By the way, the rain was picking up at this point.

Extra Time: Head injuries, heckles, red cards

The chirping from behind the benches was audible now.

A crowd of 73 fans gathered at the stadium, with a large contingent behind the Vistula bench that was chirping and screaming, acting like ultras. Noting every non-call the referee made, calling out certain Motown players for their actions, complaining out loud that they were getting text messages that the YouTube stream was down, and more. While I won't say it got into Motown's heads, their presence was definitely felt.

"It's honestly great to have them here and I wish we could have them every game and I love them to death," Elezaj said of the group.

That said, there were multiple instances of horrible stuff being said at dudes playing amateur soccer. Things in Arabic (noted by someone on the sideline), Spanish (because it was that word that begins with the letter P), and Polish being said that turned heads. The kind of stuff that would get a warning over the loudspeaker during a Leagues Cup match.

Motown head coach Toure Weaver made mention of slurs coming from the group towards his players, though nothing was done to stop them. What could be done? They were outside the field of play, and removing the bad actors without any security was impossible.

Still a majority of it was just dudes being loud to players and referees, and it definitely was being felt by those groups.

After some back-and-forth play, Vistula took the lead at the end of the first half of extra time when Nicholas Kozdron set up John McGeechan in the 105th minute. A free kick found the former Rider University midfielder in the crowd, and he headed it home.

Again, the small crowd erupted. At this point, it didn't feel like Motown had a chance to come back, even as it remained 10v10 out there.

The second half of extra time, of course, was not simple. With Motown pushing, a collision of bodies occurred in the Vistula box around the 112th minute.

Motown's Abdul Ouedraogo went head-to-head with Karcz in the box, and the Motown player went down as members of both teams circled around him.

Ouedraogo suffered a major gash on his head, forcing a match doctor onto the field. A match doctor who had come straight from his day job, and who was operating without any medical equipment on hand.

Meanwhile, the hero Karcz walked away, before falling to a knee and stumbling close to midfield. He was suffering what appeared to possibly be a concussion. He even said so himself, asking to be taken out.

After the match, the player-coach was heard saying he was having trouble remembering things from the match, though he was helped by family and friends. He was still offering to try and move the replacement nets back to their original field after the match despite the injury.

Both teams made concussion subs, which would be their last available subs of the game anyway.

Alex Woftowicz, who played for Polish Ekstraklasa club Górnik Zabrze's reserve team earlier this year, scored a game-sealing goal for Vistula in the 120th minute, right before the final whistle, assisted by Elezaj.

Frustrations then boiled over for FC Motown, who saw Salvador Pliego sent off at the 120'+5' for a second yellow card, just as the game finished up. That sending-off drew more screaming from the crowd demanding he leave the field...and stand not far from them.

The aftermath

Sunday night felt like a change for both teams.

SC Vistula Garfield, in their sixth straight qualifying tournament, are no longer the underdogs. The team that always seemed to get punched down by the bigger teams in their leagues, like Lansdowne Yonkers or even FC Motown once upon a time, are now a threat.

A player-coach with a concussion is driving this group ahead, possibly into being a Cupset-able squad, if they make it all the way into the tournament proper.

For Motown, the loss confirms something that I think a few people have known but needed to be re-enforced: The era of its dominance is over. The run of US Open Cup qualifications, the longest active streak by an Open Division team, is over. For the first time since 2016, Motown will not be in the tournament.

The team known for crushing state league teams, cruising through the NPSL regular season, and fighting for national titles was now losing to amateur teams in Open Cup qualifying.

The idea of having a team made up of mercenaries, great players who just showed up to play and then left, wasn't working anymore. Relying on those kinds of players, especially in Open Cup qualifying when it's held during the league's offseason, doesn't work. It's something Motown has noticed while competing in the Open Cup itself, when the First Round in March meant trying to assemble a roster.

Motown's last US Open Cup match win was all the way back in 2022. The team has lost in the First Round every year since. Now, they didn't even make it past their first qualifying match.

If you tell someone about this game, or they read this entire article, there's plenty of valid reactions they might have.

• "That's beautiful stuff, real culture."
• "Pure sicko stuff."
• "What a disgrace, US Soccer should be ashamed."
• "I'm not surprised at any of that."

The list could go on, and it's all correct. This is a game that, unless you were there, you wouldn't have seen it. Not many people could have, considering the stream on YouTube cut out after the first half.

It's a game that might not end up mattering in the long run. If Vistula loses in the next qualifying round later this month, this all would have just been a footnote, a score line on a Wikipedia page or on TheCup.us.

Instead, this game reminded me of everything about lower-division soccer. The good and the bad. The stuff that makes me want to go out and cover these types of games. Meeting and interacting with players and staff who do this all for fun, and for a chance to play against professional sides in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.

I covered a World Cup final earlier this summer, less than 10 miles from this high school field in Garfield. While one match mattered a whole lot more, it's hard to argue one game didn't have a better story. It was the type of game where every bit of chaos kind of reminds you why the lower divisions are as fun and interesting as they are. And why I love covering them enough to write 3,500 words about a wet US Open Cup game on a turf high school pitch.

MATCH BROADCAST (Only First Half)