A Chattanooga Derby Stoked By A Soccer War Gets Its US Open Cup Moment
Many of the biggest rivalries in sports grow from something beyond the competitive nature of the games themselves. When two Chattanooga teams meet in the US Open Cup second round on Wednesday night, it marks the first game in a rivalry that contains some typical ingredients with an added helping of American soccer shenanigans.
Though the teams play at the same tier of US soccer — Division III — they play in different leagues. Chattanooga FC play in MLS Next Pro, and the Chattanooga Red Wolves play in USL League One.
How they arrived in these leagues is part of the rivalry itself, while the burgeoning competition between the two organizations that run those leagues provides an additional layer of interest.
A Distinctly American Soccer Rivalry
The origin of this derby involves a popular amateur, lower-league team and the desire of a professional league to install a team on their patch.
Chattanooga FC was growing year on year as an amateur club and became well-known to followers of lower-league soccer in the United States nationally. It is one of several teams at amateur, semi-pro, and lower league professional level that have made an impression on the wider soccer landscape despite playing in what US sports culture would normally consider minor leagues.
When Chattanooga FC turned down initial approaches from USL and a proposal for it to be a founder member of USL League One which began in 2019, USL’s response was to go ahead regardless, installing a team in its stead and selling a new Chattanooga franchise with USL territory rights, the Red Wolves, to Utah real estate developer Bob Martino.
The reason this new team would theoretically be in Chattanooga FC’s stead, replacing it rather than existing alongside it, is that it’s unusual in US soccer for the team being encroached upon in such a way to survive. These teams normally get swallowed by the new team or become one of the hundreds of defunct US soccer teams. There are examples of such soccer teams in most US cities, and this move was a very real threat to Chattanooga FC’s existence.
"Both clubs agree this is an extraordinary city," Chattanooga FC co-founder and then-chairman Tim Kelly told the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2019. "The Red Wolves' intent is to put us out of business, but we have said from the start we are never going to leave Chattanooga.
"I hope Bob Martino is committed to making it his life's work, because we are. We are not going anywhere. We live here. This is about franchise corporatism versus localism."
Noises were also made about the Red Wolves moving into Finley Stadium, the home of Chattanooga FC. The Red Wolves believed there was enough room for two teams in the city, but Chattanooga FC understandably viewed it as a move to replace it in the city's sports scene.
The idea behind such a move is that franchises absorb the support of an old team seamlessly, gaining the benefits without having put in any of the groundwork. Again, this is something often seen in US sports and in US soccer. One recent example is the latest Major League Soccer (MLS) expansion franchise, San Diego FC, which, to cut a longer story short, replaced an existing team, San Diego Loyal.
Chattanooga FC’s method of survival was to offer ownership shares publicly and turn professional itself, first by joining the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA) and later moving to MLS Next Pro.
MLS Next Pro, like USL League One, is a league at the Division III level in US soccer but is primarily known as a reserve league MLS teams. These Division III leagues run parallel to each other on the same level of the USSF professional pyramid but are not connected.
By the time Chattanooga FC decided to join MLS Next Pro, they saw it as another case of making such a move or risk ceasing to exist as a club altogether, given the volatility of NISA and other leagues at this level. This is backed up by the fact that NISA lost its USSF Division III sanctioning ahead of the 2025 season.
The unusual thing about this Chattanooga rivalry is that until now, despite its backstory and in some ways because of it, the two teams have never met.
The situation is unique due to the way US soccer and US sports work in general, but the meeting is made possible by an all-encompassing cup competition that has echoes of other domestic cups around the world.
The Origin Of A Derby
Though competitive soccer rivalries can develop over time or temporarily when two consistently strong teams regularly vie for success against each other, the most natural rivalries usually develop among teams close to each other.
The definition of the word “derby” itself refers to local rivalries among teams from the same town or city, which is another reason this Chattanooga rivalry has become so intense so quickly.
The idea of a derby originates from the English peerage, the Earl of Derby, and the family’s centuries-old sponsorship of the Epsom Derby horse race in England. Edward Stanley, the 19th Earl of Derby, believes the concept of a derby in football originated in rugby league football between the teams near their Knowsley estate, Wigan and St Helens.
"On our family's Knowsley Estate, you had St Helens at the southern end and the town of Wigan at the northern end,“ Stanley told the BBC.
“At Easter, a game was arranged between the two sides which became known as the local derby."
The match between St Helens and Wigan is played on Good Friday to this day, and in all forms of football, including the association game, natural local rivalries emerged organically around the same time in the late 19th century as teams turned professional and competitions became more organized.
Over time, these local derbies gained additional baggage, including social and political factors that affect the extent to which a rivalry brews throughout the decades.
The Chattanooga rivalry has emerged quickly, as many of those new rivalries in the late 1800s will have. It has all the ingredients of a local derby but with an extra edge, thanks to the aforementioned US-soccer-war twist that also makes it distinctly American.
The Present And Future Of The Chattanooga Derby
Having this local derby within the same league might have worked. Though at the time the Red Wolves didn’t consider the plight of Chattanooga FC, their idea, genuine or otherwise, that the city and others like it could accommodate two successful professional soccer teams should be entertained and holds some weight. This US Open Cup game and the interest around it demonstrates as much.
Usually, this kind of rivalry is something American soccer is not wont to do as its teams’ franchise operators/owners are buying into a market area as well as buying the team. The idea is that multiple teams competing within the same market would not attract investors who would like that market and those fans for themselves.
But as USL looks to become more “authentic”, proposing the introduction of promotion and relegation as well as a new Division I league to run parallel to and potentially in competition with MLS, there will inevitably be local clashes in league play as teams move up and down the leagues, possibly passing nearby teams as they do so.
Though it might have been good to see this rivalry emerge in a league with regular fixtures, the teams' contrasting origin stories, going separate ways in separate leagues, have further stoked the fire of this rivalry. The rarity of the fixture will make the games all the more intense and eagerly anticipated when they do happen.
The Chattanooga scenario potentially provides a lesson for USL as it tries to differentiate itself from MLS by positioning itself as a league more in line with the global game with aims to expand the horizons of US soccer from closed-shop leagues and franchises to something more closely resembling sports clubs in a league pyramid.
Ironically, in this scenario, it is Chattanooga FC that has been built on such ideas but has ended up playing in MLS Next Pro due the the actions of a USL franchise.
Many fans who support lower-division soccer in the United States might instinctively root against the establishment, MLS-linked team, but the Chattanooga FC story has a nuanced history that means even those opposed to the way MLS does things may be behind the MLS Next Pro side on this occasion.
This US Open Cup tie also demonstrates the importance of the tournament itself as a vehicle for teams from across the country, regardless of their level and the league in which they play, to compete in a national championship. This Chattanooga derby would not exist in competitive games were it not for the US Open Cup
And it’s all set to take place in the Finley Stadium, itself part of the tug of war in this rivarly, on Wednesday night in a historic first meeting between the two teams.
Whatever lies ahead for Chattanooga FC and Chattanooga Red Wolves, or for USL and MLS, this fixture will provide both teams with a boost and will make soccer the talking point of Chattanooga sports.
Genuine derbies can be rare in soccer in the United States, but this derby has emerged in the quirky conditions of soccer in the United States, which in turn makes it somewhat unique in the sport as a whole.
