The Freedom have their 2010 schedule on the website. The good: - Four matches against new local rival Philadelphia, with both road matches on weekends. - Possibly two doubleheaders with the W-League team as both teams are scheduled for the Soccerplex on June 12 and July 10. The bad: - Once again only three matches against second-closest rival Sky Blue, and once again the only road match is on a Wednesday night. - Unbalanced schedule: six of the first nine games are at home, followed by nine out of fifteen games on the road. The ugly: - We're apparently rivals with St. Louis now, considering that they're one of the teams we play four times. (Atlanta is the third.) There appears to be only one potential doubleheader with DC United on the schedule, that for May 1, when we play the Athletica and United plays the Red Bulls.
Another good is that 4 of the 5 FSC matches are road trips (1 game at Boston and St. Louis, 2 games at ATL). This combined with road trips means you might get to see 19 out of the 24 games - fingers crossed for webcasts! Chicago did well with that last year and 2 of the 5 games we won't be able to see easily are in Chicago Also those international friendly games mentioned my Washo are rather interesting.
They're working on one for May 1, but it's not definite yet. Even if that does work out, it will be the only one.
I'm a fan of cutting back the doubleheaders. Although they made sense in theory, in practice they weren't very good. The hot afternoons led to small crowds, tired players, and pretty lackluster soccer.
Current schedule for preseason and exhibition matches: Code: DATE/TIME LOCATION OPPONENT NOTES 3/12, 7:00 pm Hobart Soccer Complex Chicago Tickets from irsoccer.com Vero Beach, FL 3/20, 7:30 pm Sportsbackers Park UVA Free. Venue information Richmond, VA at sportsbackers.org 3/27, 2:00 pm Soccerplex Phila. Admission $10 4/03, 3:00 pm Soccerplex UNC Donation $10 Kicks Against Breast Cancer First game is on a Friday; the rest are on Saturday.
Great news that the Freedom were able to work out a doubleheader for the one conflict they had with United's schedule. I know some of the other WPS teams will not be as lucky (FCGP). Also I like the fact that the Freedom game is after United play - hopefully some of the fans will stay around to watch at least part of the match. I am not fooling myself into thinking all of them will, but I am hoping at least some of them do. I know a lot of United fans didn't want to leave their tailgates early last year.
The final WUSA doubleheader also saw Freedom play the nightcap. IIRC, it helped a little attendance-wise, but not a huge amount.
I remember going to a few doubleheaders and I have to admit, it was hard walking away from the tailgates.
Buried in a sponsorship announcement: Freedom's exhibition match against the Canadian National Team on May 23rd at George Mason University.