Scheduling!

We got both the full 2022 MLS schedule and our CCL draw today.  Full schedule analysis will be saved for this weekend (hopefully) but two things that stand out is that we have an early Rocky Mountain Cup home match on April 2nd, and the week leading into Labor Day is a 3-game week in Philly, Nashville, and DC, which seems like a doable road trip for people so-inclined (at the very least got to Philly, spend a week seeing Philly and DC, and go to the game in DC).

The CCL draw is a little easier to analyze.  Our first opponent is Comunicaciones FC of Guatemala.  The first leg will be in Guatemala on February 15th-17th with the return leg at the Dick on Feb 22nd-24th.  This is a team we should be able to beat, even coming out of preseason.  Assuming we don't fall flat on our face we'll get the winner of the NYCFC-Santos de Guapiles (Costa Rica), again with the first leg away and the second leg at the Dick.

Should we get through that match and onto the semifinals we'll get the remaining team out of Guastatoya (Guatemala), Montagua (Honduras), the Sounders, and Leon.  Leon would be an intriguing matchup given that's where Yarbrough came to us from, and rolling it all the way back to 1996 that's also where Marcelo Balboa came to us from.  We also faced Leon in the first round of the then CONCACAF Champions Cup in 1998 after being the runner up in MLS Cup '97, being eliminated 403 on aggregate after beating Leon 1-0 in the first leg at Mile High.

This is about as solid a draw as we could hope for if we want to finally make some noise in international play.  Only 1 of the 4 Mexican teams ended up on our side of the bracket, and they're in the upper half while we're in the lower half.  So there are two chances for them to be eliminated before we could even face them.  Of course none of that matters if we don't take care of business, first by beating a team we should beat, and then taking out a team we should also beat, or taking out the defending MLS Cup champs.  Both of these are absolutely possible.