The Desert Showcase (formerly the Desert Cup, the Desert Diamond Cup, the Mobile Mini Sun Cup, and the Visit Tucson Sun Cup), is a preseason soccer tournament hosted by
Phoenix Rising FC of the
USL Championship and
FC Tucson of
USL League Two. The tournament is sponsored by the Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau, known as Visit Tucson.
Beginning in 2011, the inaugural Desert Cup featured two
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...
(MLS) clubs,
Sporting Kansas City
Sporting Kansas City is an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The ad ...
and
New York Red Bulls. In the years since, the number of participating MLS clubs has continued to grow, with the 2018 Mobile Mini Sun Cup featuring eleven MLS clubs ‒ nearly half of the league's total membership.
History
The
first edition of the tournament, held at
Hi Corbett Field, a former
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
spring training stadium saw sellout crowds with international stars such as
Thierry Henry,
Rafael Márquez, and
Omar Bravo playing.
The
second edition was held from February 22 through March 3, paralleling several other preseason tournaments ahead of the
2012 American outdoor domestic league seasons. Three new clubs competed in the
2012
2012 was designated as:
*International Year of Cooperatives
*International Year of Sustainable Energy for All
Events January
*January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins.
* January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...
edition of the tournament: defending MLS Cup champions
LA Galaxy
The Los Angeles Galaxy are an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The Gal ...
,
Real Salt Lake, and the
New England Revolution joined the
New York Red Bulls, who returned for their second Desert Cup appearance. The 2012 Desert Diamond Cup moved to
Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium and saw clubs play a total of four matches each.
Phoenix Rising FC purchased
FC Tucson on October 11, 2017. On December 5, Phoenix Rising FC and FC Tucson announced that they would co-host the tournament and that it would be renamed the Mobile Mini Sun Cup, with
Mobile Mini as sponsor. Games will be played at North Stadium at the
Kino Sports Complex as well as
Phoenix Rising Soccer Complex. A record 11 teams will participate in the 2018 tournament.
In 2020, the tournament will be renamed the Visit Tucson Sun Cup and will host Sporting Kansas City, Real Salt Lake, New York Red Bulls, Houston Dynamo and Columbus Crew SC along with Phoenix Rising FC.
Sponsors
*Desert Diamond Casinos & Entertainment (2012–2017)
*
Mobile Mini Storage Solutions (2018–2019)
*Visit Tucson (2020–present)
Results
See also
*
Carolina Challenge Cup – A preseason soccer tournament held in
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...
hosted by
USL Pro side,
Charleston Battery.
*
Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic – Held at the
ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the
Walt Disney World Resort near
Orlando, Florida
Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...
. The tournament is hosted also by MLS side,
Orlando City.
*
Hawaiian Islands Invitational – 2012 event, also a property of
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
and featuring teams from
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, and
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
References
External links
*
Phoenix Rising FC &
FC Tucson - Tournament Hosts
Facebook Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Visit Tucson Sun Cup
Soccer cup competitions in the United States
American soccer friendly trophies
Phoenix Rising FC
FC Tucson