Schedule Surprise!

Late this morning word started filtering out that MLS could announce some of the schedule details today.  Instead MLS announced the whole schedule, at a time much earlier than they ever have before. This is likely the first time we know next year's schedule before we know which of this year's players will have their options picked up.

Of course the big news in the Rapids schedule is that Inter Miami is finally coming to Colorado.  This is their seventh season so it gets harder and harder, from a competitive standpoint, for MLS to excuse why Miami has never been here but even with that I did not expect them to pass up the big bucks of sending the GOAT back to LA or Seattle or something.  April 18th Miami will be here.

Of course, where will here be?  There was nothing said about a change of venue in today's announcement but many fans think that the game will be moved from the Dick's Sporting Goods Park to Empower Field.  I, for one, hope it isn't.  The Rapids are celebrating not only their 30th anniversary this year but also 20 years in the Dick.  Since they made the move on April 7th, 2007 they have played every competitive home match there.  They didn't move games for Beckham.  They didn't move cold weather CCC games to a better venue.  They didn't play USOC home games at a smaller stadium.  The Dick is our home and we shouldn't give that up just to get 15K extra fans to show up, watch Messi, eave as soon as he's subbed off, and never think about the Rapids again.

The other question is, of course, will Messi travel/play.  The good news is that there are no competitive Argentina matches around that date.  The bad news is that if Miami makes the quarterfinals of the CCC their trip to Colorado comes right after the midweek second leg.  If that happens, I could see them not bringing Messi.  Its also the start of a three game week for Miami, they'll go from Colorado on Saturday to Utah on Wednesday before heading home to face the Revs, which would be followed by the first leg of the CCC semifinals.  If they're eliminated before the quarterfinals I would expect Messi to travel and play some (barring injury) but if they're in the quarters all bets are off with that schedule.

Now that we've dealt with the GOAT elephant in the room, on to the rest of the schedule.  We open in my hometown of Seattle on Sunday February 22nd i what will be the Sunday Night Soccer opening match.  We then come home and face another Cascadia team in our home opener the next Saturday in the Timbers.  Traditionally we do fairly well with the Timbers as our home debut.  Our first long road trip is March 14th through April 4th with 3 road games, including two of our three East Coast trips to NYCFC and TFC (Hi Djordje!).

That Miami match is the first game of our first 3-game week with trips to LAFC on Wednesday and Vancouver the following Saturday.  Our second three-game week starts May 9th when we host St. Louis and then we make a midweek trip to Minnesota before heading to the dark place for the first leg of the Rocky Mountain Cup on Memorial Day Saturday.  We then host Dallas a week later before a long World Cup break.

MLS restarts right after the World Cup final with the Rapids hosting San Diego on Wednesday, July 22nd.  There's a noticeable break in everyone's schedule the second week of August, which will presumably involve Leagues Cup.  That's also in the middle of our only run of 3 straight home games, with Austin on the 1st, SKC on the 15th, and LAFC midweek on the 19th (we pop over to San Diego to finish another 3-game week).  Then to finish August FSL comes through for the second half of the RMC.

Another week break and we're right back to a 3 game week as we go to Columbus, Austin and host Montreal.  October starts with another 3 game week after the International break with San Jose and Minnesota visiting before we go to Portland.  We get a midweek off and, stop me if you've heard this before, another three game week as host Vancouver, go to San Jose, and host Chicago in the home finale on Halloween.  Then we finish the season the next weekend in Dallas.

So we have 5 3-game weeks and a 2-game Wednesday/Saturday week coming out of the World Cup break.  Half our games are played with another league match within 3-4 days of it, instead of the "traditional" week on either side.  And that's before the USOC and Leagues Cup games are added.  Its tough to get a whole schedule in when you're taking June and most of July off.  Good thing its a once every 4 years thing...oh wait.

Other than that though the schedule actually stacks up fairly well.  No ridiculous trips where we play on the East Coast and then on the West Coast in 4 days or anything and no real long road trips or home stands.  One note is that the home opener in February and the Miami games are 2:30pm kickoffs and the home finale on Halloween is TBD.  The other 14 are the normal 7:30pm kicks.  

Unlike this year where the run in looked fairly brutal we finish @Portland, Vancouver @San Jose, Chicago, @Dallas.  You never know who's going to jump up in a given year but outside Vancouver those are teams roughly on our level right now.  Our toughest stretches are the 3-game Miami week (Miami, @LAFC, @Vancouver) and late August/early September (LAFC, @San Diego, FSL, @Columbus).