The home openers for 2020 have been announced. The rest of the schedule is due to come out later in December. All 26 teams will play on Opening Weekend. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/12/05/home-openers-announced-25th-season-major-league-soccer Home team first, times are ET. Week 1 Saturday, February 29 D.C. United vs. Colorado Rapids 1:00 pm Montreal Impact vs. New England Revolution 3:00 pm Houston Dynamo vs. LA Galaxy 3:30 pm San Jose Earthquakes vs. Toronto FC 5:30 pm FC Dallas vs. Philadelphia Union 6:00 pm Orlando City SC vs. Real Salt Lake 6:00 pm Nashville SC vs. Atlanta United 6:00 pm Vancouver Whitecaps FC vs. Sporting Kansas City 10:30 pm Sunday, March 1 Columbus Crew SC vs. New York City FC 12:30 pm New York Red Bulls vs. FC Cincinnati 1:00 pm Seattle Sounders FC vs. Chicago Fire FC 3:00 pm Los Angeles Football Club vs. Inter Miami CF 5:30 pm Portland Timbers vs. Minnesota United FC 7:30 pm Week 2 Saturday, March 7 New England Revolution vs. Chicago Fire FC 1:30 pm Real Salt Lake vs. New York Red Bulls 2:00 pm Toronto FC vs. New York City FC 5:00 pm Atlanta United vs. FC Cincinnati 7:00 pm Sporting Kansas City vs. Houston Dynamo 8:30 pm Colorado Rapids vs. Orlando City SC 9:00 pm LA Galaxy vs. Vancouver Whitecaps FC 10:00 pm Week 3 Saturday, March 14 New York City FC vs. FC Dallas 12:30 pm Inter Miami CF vs. LA Galaxy 2:30 pm FC Cincinnati vs. D.C. United 5:30 pm Philadelphia Union vs. San Jose Earthquakes 7:30 pm Sunday, March 15 Minnesota United FC vs. New York Red Bulls 7:00 pm Week 4 Saturday, March 21 Chicago Fire FC vs. Atlanta United 3:30 pm
Odd that they have LAG at Houston and Montreal hosting New England on February 29. Crazy, crack-smoking idea, but maybe it might have been a better idea to have LA at home and the 2 Eastern teams playing at LA and Houston...
I agree. The flexibility of scheduling MLS league matches in February is now in play for the very reason that there are now so many Region III (The Southern States) and Region IV (The West of Texas States) teams in the league. Specifically avoiding having North of Ohio MLS clubs playing home dates in February. Everyone North of Ohio can easily play everyone South of Kentucky and or the Pacific Coast. Colorado and or Utah can as well play away these days with Miami and Nashville coming on board.
Its nice to wave your hand and say "MLS, do this" but its not that easy. These venues are booked for things other than MLS games and moving one game starts a chain of dominoes that can ripple trough the season. While I agree that having LA and Houston both host makes more sense, we don't really know what other changes that would drive. "LA and Houston host but now Chicago has to host too because Game A had to move so Game B had to move, so now Chicago is short a home date and the only available weekend for the teams involved is to have them host on opening weekend" and so forth. Or its a case of "We either have Montreal host opening weekend, or later in the season they have to play at home on Sunday, play at LAFC on Wednesday, and then play at home again on Saturday". The lesser of two evils being an indoor game in Montreal over having Montreal make two cross-continent trips in less than a week.
Never mind. An indoor game in Montreal is fine. If they were playing in Saputo instead of the Big Owe that time of year that would be insane. Weren't there some serious problems where it couldn't be used? I guess they must have fixed them by now...
And here is the list if which 3 teams each team won’t face. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2019/12/19/2020-mls-schedule-your-club-will-face-every-team-except-these-three FCC, Orlando, and Philly won’t get to face the Sounders. Sorry!
It makes me sad that we won't see every team face each other but it's unavoidable now with such a huge league. Have they expressed clearly that they are going to rotate the teams that miss each other so that you don't go years without seeing a team form the other conference. Hopefully that will be the policy.
NYCFC appear to have a balanced and comfortable (for wont of a better phrase) home schedule this season. Playing some matches at Citi Field looks like it's going to work out nice for me.
If they can teach Barry how to hit a decent cross or shot, Montreal will have a good season. He can keep three yards onside and still get behind the defense.
Yeah, we're not happy about the 2020 schedule. As a northern team, we'll have to play some home matches in bad weather. But there's no reason for a midweek match in late April. It could easily go in the summer months. We also don't get a weather advantage with Orlando being the only warm weather team we play at home early. Strangely we don't play any of the California teams, even on the road. And we finish with some teams pretty early in the year while not getting to others until much later.
It appears that Atlanta, Toronto, and New England get to dodge FCD this season. Thank God for those second games against San Jose, Vancouver, Salt Lake, and Minnesota.
League games per week, pending changes: I consider a MLS week to run Tuesday to Monday. 1. Feb 29-Mar 1: 13 games 2. Mar 7-8: 13 games 3. Mar 14-15: 12 games 4. Mar 21-22: 13 games 5. Mar 28: 3 games FIFA Break 6. Apr 3-5: 13 games 7. Apr 11-12: 12 games 8. Apr 15-19: 17 games 9. Apr 25-26: 13 games 10. Apr 29-May 3: 17 games 11. May 6-10: 15 games 12. May 13-17: 17 games 13. May 23-24: 13 games 14. May 27-31: 19 games 15. Jun 6: 5 games FIFA Break 16. Jun 13-14: 13 games 17. Jun 17-21: 22 games 18. Jun 27-28: 13 games 19. Jul 1-5: 21 games 20. July 8-12: 17 games 21. Jul 15-19: 14 games 22. Jul 22-25: 15 games 23. Aug 1-2: 13 games 24. Aug 5-9: 15 games 25. Aug 12-16: 16 games 26. Aug 20-23: 14 games 27. Aug 26-30: 15 games 28. Sep 4-5: 3 games FIFA Break 29. Sep 11-13: 13 games 30. Sep 16-20: 17 games 31. Sep 26-27: 13 games 32. Oct 4: 13 games The midpoint of the regular season (221 games) is on June 20. That is a week earlier than last year.
Games by day of the week: Wednesday - 56 games Thursday - 3 games Friday - 9 games Saturday - 292 games Sunday - 82 games
Crew somehow get 6 home games before end of April, most in the league. Would have guessed a warm weather team would have the most but no.
I should have posted this earlier. This was the day of the week breakdown in 2019: Tuesday - 1 game Wednesday - 62 games Thursday - 9 games Friday - 24 games Saturday - 217 games Sunday - 90 games Remember that the number of games went up to 442 this year from 408 last year. 2019 - mid-week games (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday): 72/408 - 17.6% 2020 - (Wednesday, Thursday) 59/442 - 13.3%
Do those numbers include the 4th of July games being midweek? I mean, they are, but its not like they're on a normal workday.
Yes, they do. I almost put a disclaimer in there about it. Most of the games last year were on Wednesday, July 3, with the holiday the next day so they were probably closer to Friday games. And they went up against the Gold Cup semifinal. Only 3 of the games were on the 4th itself. There were a total of 10 games on the 3rd and 4th so you could throw them out of the mid-week category. That would reduce the percentage to 15.2%.