It looks like there will extremely limited East vs West play in 2015. Teams on the coasts will likely not play any teams in the other conference. Tons of "local" games. http://www.recklesschallenge.net/uslpro-2015-conference-alignment-scheduling-format/
I love that OKC gets an extra home & home with Tulsa and Austin, plus a home & home with St. Louis as an Eastern Conference crossover. Lots of local trips.
Makes sense based on how last year's schedule was. Love home and home series. There was also talk on Twitter of the playoffs being in October which means the season will be stretched out another month. Hopefully cutting down on either weekday games or the double header weekends.
Just saw the planned schedule format. I think it works. It's great we finally have a good Western Conference where we can have a solid schedule. It'll be as close to balanced as it has been for a while.
Lets be honest ... this league isn't done expanding and likely future "conference realignment" will be necessary. That means St. Louis/OKC/Tulsa may go back and forth between East and West for a bit (or become the Central) in the future so it's a good idea to start fueling that central rivalry.
I agree. A few days ago, after looking at the map, I counted up 12 western teams to see that St. Louis wouldn't make the cut, & was initially disappointed that they wouldn't be in our conference. I was really glad to read today that we will get to the play them. If and when a Central division came out, we could already have a series history.
That @PghRiverhounds release states that team plays "in the National Division" of USLPRO. So what's western half going to be called?— TheSoccerObserver (@SoccerObserver) December 15, 2014 The reference isn't in the press release anymore so I guess it was removed. Either way looks like we might be going back to the 2011 names.
I dont know about you but i wouldnt travel there for a game. Not that i am likely to travel to more than two or three game at most anyway. Lower costs, more likely to have away fans than this years usl pro. sounds good to me. It's not like there will be superstars in the other conference who we are not going to see and be disapointed.
Yeah, well....them's the breaks. Fans of a given club probably couldn't name half the teams in the league.
But they may be able to name the ones in their region (and they're likely to play a double home and home with them). It's really brilliant that they're doing the extra home/home with the clubs closest to them (if that's all true). It may not matter to some of the games, but the PNW teams may be able to draw better against their local rivals, same with OKC/Tulsa, possibly the 3 Carolina clubs and Richmond (as the old guard clubs), possibly Harrisburg/Pittsburg, etc. Teams can start marketing/selling tix and using regional teams as a part of that knowing there will be 4 games against those local clubs during the season (2 home/2 away) to help build that rivalry. I know that "rivalries" aren't as big in lower levels of soccer due to the sporatic history of teams ... but nothing wrong with trying to help facilitate some by scheduling, especially at this stage in the growth for the USL.
That's my point. The fact you don't play everybody is ( a ) inevitable because of the size of the league and ( b ) not a big deal in the end because nobody in Portland will feel they missed out by not playing Harrisburg.
And no one in Richmond is mad because they're not playing Seattle2 ... because remember ... USL teams should HATE having to play MLS reserve teams because that's not what fans SHOULD want to happen!
I'm guessing LAG2 will play their extra games against OC, Sacramento and Arizona. It's gotta be a bit of a scheduling nightmare to figure those extra games out. Is Arizona gonna have to play Colorado Springs and RMSL twice? Probably.
Well, you would have thought it would have been easy ... 12 teams per conference, play the 11 home and homes vs conference, and then each conference was divided up into 3 groups of 4 ... and you play and extra home and home with the 3 teams in your "pod" so to speak ... but OKC playing St. Louis mess's that ALL up!
Eastern Conference Groups --FC Montreal, Toronto2, NYRB2, Rochester Rhinos --HC Islanders, Pittsburgh, Louisville, St. Louis --Richmond, Charlotte, Wilmington, Charleston Western Conference Groups --VancouverII, Sounders2, Portland2, Real Monarchs --Sacramento, OCBlues, GalaxyII, Arizona --Colorado Springs, Tulsa, OKC Energy, Austin If you keep it within those groups there is NO cross conference games though which may not be ideal. But it makes scheduling easy. IF you kept with 8 playoff teams (4 from each conference) you could go with 1E vs 4W, 2E vs 3W, 1W vs 4E, 2W, vs 3E.
As a Rhino fan, That group makes me a little sad. Yes it is the one that makes the most sense, but the other three teams are MLS ones.
Sounds like they might be waiting for the NYRBs to actually decided if and where they will play in the USL Pro.
2014: January 30 2013: January 24 2012: January 11 2011: January 14 So my clue would be "January. Ish."
I just finished listening to a replay interview with the STLFC GM who very openly speculates that we'll see a central division in USL as soon as next year. It's early in the Part 1 segment. http://saintlouisfc.com/Radio_Content
In this same interview it was mentioned that the league is gonna get some sort of a rebrand to roll out some time in january