U.S. Open Cup Final Winners and Losers: Benjamin Lundt goes from backup to hero as St. Louis CITY clinch first trophy on penalties

This is vindication, then. Back in August, Damet emphasized the importance of this trophy in an interview with GOAL.

"It's in the back of everyone's mind," he admitted.

It was a rare break in character for Damet, the youngest manager in MLS. He is a process guy, a day-by-day dude. St. Louis are the collective. He has always preached the value of a team, not a star. The goal, he so often says, is to be better tomorrow than today. That's all well and good, but sometimes achievements are achievements.

And this was an immense one. St. Louis were down and out in MLS six months ago. They were outsiders for this trophy, too, which all too few MLS teams value. But for this club, this historic soccer city, it's a massive thing. St. Louis so often claims it is the home of soccer in America. That can be disputed. It surely will be. But Damet, the process guy who values process things, will forever be the one who brought a trophy to this club.

And on the other hand, you have another young coach who couldn't quite get it done. In truth, Courtois has been dealt a really tough hand here. He is still, technically, the interim manager, after replacing Henrik Rydstrom in late May. He is without his star player, Wissam Abou Ali, who tore his ACL earlier this year.

This is a Columbus side light on talent that showed plenty of grit to get this far. And at the end of the day, Courtois couldn't quite get them over the line. In truth, he didn't do a lot wrong here. His captain, Sean Zawadzki, was immense at the back. Mendez created all kinds of interesting chances. Josef Martinez, so clearly over the hill at this level, was full of energy and ideas. The Crew just lacked a finish.

Where this leaves him now is rather hard to tell. Courtois resume in MLS before this shows plenty of nice football but an otherwise empty trophy cabinet. He is a good coach, but not a historic winner. This felt like a night to buck a trend. Instead, it was one to forget.

Give it up for the backup goalkeepers. They are perhaps the best kind of sporting heroes. Expectations are inherently low. Their profiles tend to be even lower. They're rarely big names. And they rarely materially impact games.

Well, Lundt basically made this one. After Roman Burki was subbed due to injury, all six feet six of Lundt, a German journeyman, came lumbering off the bench. During the remainder of regular time, he had little to do other than boot the ball downfield quite a lot. And then came penalties.

Some keepers have water bottles with detailed notes about every single penalty taker for an opposing side. Lundt appeared to be going off vibes here. His penalty saves were down to, it seemed, good old-fashioned guesswork. Modern? Not at all. But he stopped two, and St. Louis buried all five of theirs. Congratulations, St. Louis, you have your hero.

How Navarro must have hated watching this. St. Louis shelled out $12 million to bring in Colorado's main man to play up front for the second half of the season. And he has delivered on the price tag in MLS play, bagging eight goals in eight games. More importantly, though, Navarro is a proper striker. He scores goals in pretty normal ways. Every single one of his 18 goals for Colorado and St. Louis has come from inside the box. Give him a half chance, and he will score.

And that's what St. Louis were really missing here. For all of the talk of defensive solidity, hard tackles, tireless running and the traditional trimmings of a cup final, St. Louis just needed a tiny bit of cutting edge. And with attacking midfielder Alex Matan gone, and Marcel Hartel long-since departed for Germany, CITY didn't really have anyone to turn to. If only their main man wasn't cup tied...

If you ever needed evidence of an MLS coaching tree, this is it. Laurent Courtois headed up Columbus's MLS Next Pro team during part of Wilfried Nancy's reign, and has really designed this Crew side in the Frenchman's image. And Nancy would have been proud of this performance - even if it lacked a bit of cutting edge. Columbus did all of the Columbus things that the former French manager is known for - built through the thirds, kept the ball, utilized spaces.

The same is true of St. Louis, albeit in a different way. Their Nancy influence comes all the way from the top, as their Sporting Director, Core Wray, was Nancy's squad-building guru. This is the, well, model of game models, top-to-bottom alignment, and the belief in the collective. The great irony, of course, is that Nancy's Columbus sides were buzzing attacking juggernauts that were immensely tough to beat. The latter was certainly true here. The former? Not so much.

More than anything, this was a tough watch. It is often said that some soccer games are "for the tacticians." The phrase is typically used to describe those who like to dig into the minutiae, analyze systems from their armchair, and figure out what is really going on here. What it really means is that a game has been woeful.

And this was, by that logic, one for the tacticians. MLS is usually a good product for its chaos. Teams are not allowed to spend a lot of money, which means they have to be pretty intentional in how they do so. Attacking talent is prioritized. Defense is cast aside. Basically, the defending isn't very good. That leads to a lot of goals.

That's sound logic, but it did not apply here. The two teams combined for six shots on target. There was not a single shot in the second half of extra time. This was a tactical stalemate in the truest sense of the phrase.