The U.S. Open Cup is awesome.

I enjoyed attending last year's final in Washington, D.C., and couldn't take my eyes off this year's final either.

The U.S. Open Cup is the only truly historical national competition in the United States, having been played without interruption since 1914. That's something not even England's venerable FA Cup can claim. (While the FA Cup is 42 years older, it was interrupted for a total of 10 years by the World Wars.)

The U.S. Open Cup has mystical early-days winners like Bethlehem Steel, which won four times in the 1910s and once more in the 1920s, and Maccabi Los Angeles, which dominated the 1970s and tied Bethlehem with an all-time high of five cup wins. The competition allows access to lower league teams and it plays in a format (single elimination) that enables minnows to thrive, the very thing that makes the FA Cup so attractive.

So why doesn't the American soccer community take this competition more seriously? It's tough to explain, especially in a country that cherishes sports history.

But maybe there's hope. Maybe the competition will eventually catch on in a much bigger way. Last night's finale between the Seattle Sounders and Columbus Crew at Qwest Field drew an Open Cup record of 31,000 fans. The match had all the drama that most MLS games lack. There was a comeback, a heap of fouls by teams taking the game seriously, some near-misses and a would-be equalizer that clattered off the crossbar in the dying minutes before Seattle won 2-1.

If you missed the U.S. Open Cup, you should give it a try next year. You won't be disappointed.