"We're making the Open Cup a priority. When I think US Open Cup, our players, our coaching staff, myself, all the guys in the business office, the US Open Cup is a huge priority. We want to be successful in that. Five games and we've got a chance to lift a trophy? That's awesome. That's foregone conclusion.''

Those were the words spoken by Ali Curtis to the NY Post. "A priority." "Awesome." "Foregone conclusion."

Who knows, maybe a priority it will be, but it certainly doesn't look that way. The quarterfinals of the Open Cup are scheduled for July 21 and 22... and Metro's newly scheduled, high profile, completely pointless game against Chelsea is scheduled for that day as well.

Don't worry, Curtis has a plan! "We don't want to compromise the health and safety of a player. Just like in every competition, we can always petition for some kind of flexibility."

You will note that there is unlikely to be flexibility with Chelsea, so Curtis would have to talk to US Soccer. "US Soccer being the governing body, in a situation we don't think can manage we'd contact them and work out something that mutually benefits everybody. They haven't given us any authorization that fixture dates can be moved. I don't want to paint that picture. But from the club's perspective, if we have concerns about the date... our point is to always reach out to decision-makers, in this case US Soccer."

Talk about a priority!