NWSL hasn't officially released it yet, but the 2019 schedule is out! Each team is posting their schedule on Twitter, and here's a nice summary + full list from Equalizer: https://equalizersoccer.com/2019/02/21/2019-nwsl-regular-season-schedule-matches-times-information/ (BTW, don't take the EQZ list to heart. They have every single Spirit home game as settled, but on the Spirit's own website, they list two games as location TBD.) Apparently, the A+E collapse was clearly what was holding things up. We've seen several reports saying the collapse only happened in the past week or two, which means the Thorns podcast thingy that said "in the next few days" probably wasn't wrong with the information they had at the time. Vacuous end to the season for the Red Stars... Also a few back-to-back game series here and there, e.g. Spirit v Pride in consecutive weekends late August.
Seems strange they put the first Reign vs Portland match so late in the year (especially since there's another one 1 month later). Would've been nice if they had put it earlier so Thorns fans had an easy away game to travel to before their first home game of the season.
My connection to BigSoccer the day it came out was awful and BS wasn't letting me delete it myself; by the time BS was working for me again, it was dealt with. = = = = = So I'm prepping the SCS page for this NWSL and noticing other little quirks about the schedule... Obviously we know the Royals are the team with a bye on the first week, but two of the teams from the first week then immediately play a midweek game, and four other teams have their week 2 game before the Royals kick their first ball, for a total of 6 teams at 2 games while Utah is still sitting on 0! Made me try to look at exactly how uneven things look over the season... Wk1 : UTA(-1) W1.5 : UTA(-1), NC,ORL(+1) Wk2 : UTA(-1), ORL(+1) Wk3 : UTA,DC(-1), ORL(+1) Wk4 : UTA,DC,POR(-1), ORL(+1) Wk5 : UTA,DC,POR,SEA(-1), ORL(+1) Wk6 : UTA,DC,POR,SEA(-1) hey, no teams 2 off any more! Wk7 : UTA,DC,POR,SEA,HOU(-1) counting the Monday game Wk8 : UTA,DC,POR,SEA,HOU,NJ(-1), CHI,NC,ORL(0) Wk9 : (((-1))), NC,ORL(0) Wk10 : (((-1))), ORL(0) perfect time for ORL to have a bye next week, right? Wk11 : NJ(-2), (((-1))), ORL(0) psyche! Back to having teams 2 off Wk12 : UTA,NJ(-2), (((-1))), ORL(0) Wk13 : UTA,DC,NJ(-2), (((-1))), ORL(0) Wk14 : UTA,DC,SEA,NJ(-2), (((-1))), ORL(0) if ORL aren't in the top half of the table by now... W14.5 : UTA,SEA(-2), DC,NJ,CHI,NC(-1), POR,HOU,ORL(0) Wk15 : UTA,DC,SEA(-2), POR,NJ,CHI,NC,ORL(-1), HOU(0) Wk16 : UTA,DC,SEA,ORL(-2), POR,NJ,CHI,NC(-1), HOU(0) W16.5 : DC,ORL(-2), UTA,SEA,CHI,NC(-1), POR,HOU,NJ(0) ORL have gone from the only team at 0 to suddenly one of just two teams at -2! They play no games in four consecutive game blocks. Maybe scarier: that's a FOUR-game difference with NJ in those four blocks - or two and a half weeks. Wk17 : DC,ORL(-2), UTA,SEA,NJ,CHI,NC(-1), POR,HOU(0) W17.5 : DC,ORL(-2), UTA,SEA,NC(-1), POR,HOU,NJ,CHI(0) Wk18 : DC,ORL(-2), UTA,SEA,CHI,NC(-1), POR,HOU,NJ(0) W18.5 : DC,SEA,NC,ORL(-1) hey, starting to clean up! Wk19 : UTA,DC,SEA,NC,ORL(-1) W19.5*: UTA,SEA,NC(-1) Wk20 : UTA,DC,SEA,NC(-1) W20.5: UTA,DC,SEA(-1), POR,CHI,ORL(+1) Wk21 : UTA,DC,SEA(-1), CHI,ORL(+1) W21.5 : DC(-1), CHI,ORL(+1) Wk22 : DC(-1), CHI(+1) W22.5 : HOU,CHI(+1) Wk23 : CHI(+1) Wk24: done!! Could it have been more even? Sure - if you have one midweek game every two weeks, you could in theory keep pretty close to even all the way through. In general, though, it make a more exciting entertainment product if games are back-loaded in a season, with or without it being a World Cup year. But it sure makes that Wk1.5 NC/ORL game look out of place! X-D And even knowing the season should be back-loaded in terms of midweek games, you still could've make it cleaner too.
Now confirmed: both games (vORL 8/24 and vSEA 9/14) will be at Audi Field, both 7:30pm https://washingtonspirit.com/2019/0...-games-at-audi-field-during-2019-nwsl-season/ =edit= Oh, and we didn't mention this the other week, but NC's home game against HOU has been moved from 8/16 to 9/17 to let NC defend their ICC title.