You don’t have to go far on social media to know that Tulsa Athletic has had a complicated 2024 season.

After winning the 2023 NPSL Championship, advancing the furthest of any amateur side in the 2023 US Open Cup, and winning the Protagonist Soccer 2023 Club of the Year, things couldn’t have been much better for the club. And then the wheels came off.

After multiple well-documented tussles with their league, Tulsa Athletic was suspended for the season, literally days before the season kicked off.

With nothing to do but trying and pick up the pieces, Tulsa cobbled together a series of friendlies with as many clubs as could fit them into their schedules. Former rivals like Little Rock Rangers and Denton Diablos came to town, but the high of lifting a cup at the end of the season was unattainable for this year’s crop of Athletics. As Sonny Dalesandro put it “at the end of the day, our guys that came in are here to defend a national championship. So being able to play, even if it's just one game that's not a friendly, that's a cup game that's really, really important to our club.”

Enter the American Champions Cup.

But first a quick history lesson.

For those that don’t know what the Hank Steinbrecher Cup, it’s best to have Sonny describe it. “The Steinbrecher Cup was named after Hank Steinbrecher, who devoted a better portion of his life towards growing the game in the United States. It started about 10 years ago and it's meant to be a competition between the USASA national champion, the NPSL champion, the USL League Two champion, and the defending Steinbrecher Cup champion.”

Clear as mud.

“So when we won the national championship, I'm a huge soccer nerd and I love the idea of champions of different leagues playing in sort of a champions league competition. I think that's really cool and it makes lower league soccer more dynamic. So I've known about the Cup, 10 years since its inception and after winning a national championship, I've always wanted to win the Steinbrecher Cup. I think it's just one of the coolest things you can do in lower league soccer.”

In 2023, according to Sonny, US Soccer decided it didn’t want to pay for the Hank Steinbrecher Cup and cancelled it. This rubbed the 2023 NPSL Champions the wrong way and, after trying unsuccessfully to negotiate some kind of workaround, Sonny decided to do his own thing.

“At the end of the day, when I look back, I want to be known as someone who was able to solve problems and come up with things that moved the needle in a forward direction with American soccer and creating competitions that benefits national champions and incentivizes and grows participation in those member leagues.”

So Sonny and his team came up with the idea of the American Champions Cup. A tournament to pit champions and former champions against each other. Right now, it’s a tiny cup competition between two clubs, but he’s open to the idea of it being something bigger. “This weekend, two national champions meet on the field and we get to decide who's the better side with the referee blowing the whistle and not the judge smacking the gavel. And if it grows into something more than that, I'm happy to have a hand, whether my team is involved or not, in growing something that's awesome in the United States’ soccer community.”

Tomorrow, Houston Regals, champions of the USSSA, will be in Tulsa to take on Sonny’s Athletics at Hicks Park. And one of those teams will hoist a cup that means something.

Protagonist Soccer is the presenting sponsor of the first American Champions Cup.

- Dan Vaughn