2012 MLS Schedule: Sounders, Toronto FC Get First Week Byes

2012 San Jose Earthquakes Schedule: LA Galaxy Will Play At Stanford Stadium

With plans to open their new stadium during the 2013 season still chugging along, the 2012 MLS schedule revealed that the San Jose Earthquakes will once again host a game at Stanford Stadium. This time, they will host the LA Galaxy on June 30, another game that will be followed by fireworks. Last year, the Earthquakes were able to draw more than 40,000 to see the New York Red Bulls.

Quake, Rattle and Goal points out that the June 30 will also coincide with what appears to be a rather important stretch of games that starts in May:

... the Earthquakes face a lengthy four match stretch away from the Bay Area starting with a trip to face the Galaxy at the Home Depot Center on May 23rd and culminating with a visit to Real Salt Lake exactly a month later. However, with seven of their first twelve games at home, the Earthquakes will have a chance to stockpile some points ahead of the difficult road stretch. Four of their first seven home matches are against teams that did not qualify for the 2011 MLS postseason.

2012 Seattle Sounders Schedule: An Unbalanced Cascadia Cup?

MLS has spent a lot of time in recent years talking about rivalries and building rivalries. In fact, pretty much everything commissioner Don Garber has said with regards to expansion, growing the league, playoff format or scheduling has involved some mention of rivalries and the crown jewel of those rivalries is the Cascadia Cup between the Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps.

With the extra attention that rivalries and the Cascadia Cup has gotten, it is one series of match-ups that eyes immediately scanned for when the 2012 MLS schedule was released. Of course, the guys at SBN Nation's Sounders blog Sounder at Heart immediately looked for those Cascadia Cup match-ups and Jeremiah Oshan noticed that it wasn't exactly fair scheduling.

If you sensed that some bad news was coming, too, you were right. How bad it is probably depends on your interest in making sure the Cascadia Cup is as fair as possible. The Sounders will host just two matches against Cascadia Cup opponents at home while playing four on the road. It will be up to the Supporters Groups involved to figure out whether to count all games or not (both ways were used in unbalanced USL years).

That piece of information will, unfortunately, be the piece of news most are talking about today. It's also the one that is likely to come under the most criticism. For all the lip service MLS has paid to rivalries in recent years, it defies commonsense to set up arguably the league's biggest in such an unbalanced way. Assuming these scheduled perpetuate, this potentially sets up a situation where the Sounders will either be an advantage or disadvantage in the three-way rivalry every year. There does not appear to be any obvious reason why the league would choose to schedule it this way.

So why would MLS schedule two home games and four road games for the Sounders instead of making it three home games and three road games for all three teams? That's an outstanding question and it's tough to envision MLS having an exceptionally good reason for this. The league likes to tell fans that rivalries are the priority, but this doesn't exactly scream that, does it?

2012 Montreal Impact Schedule: Things Just Got Real

It has finally come: The Montreal Impact finally have their schedule for the 2012 MLS season.

Impact fans can start now to convince their partners to let them spent 13 Saturday afternoons and nights to watch their home team. Like we say in Quebec, it's time to start accumulating ''Air Loose'' points now to redeem them later in the year.

Like any expansion team, the significance of the first game is huge and what is better than playing the Vancouver Whitecaps, a Canadian rival from before, for the now and forever. At BC Place, on March 10, the Impact will get a taste of MLS nectar against a recent expansion team.

The schedule continues to offer a storyline. On March 17, the Impact play their first historical MLS home game against the Chicago Fire at Olympic Stadium. Even though temporary, this is the same stadium that hosted 50K+ fans for CCL quarterfinal vs Santos Laguna and the old Montreal Manic and it's Chicago that will feel the burn of soccer-crazed Montreal fans, thirsty for MLS. Jesse Marsch will get to coach his first home MLS game against the club with which he won the MLS Cup in 1998.

Out of the top 4 teams of the 2011 MLS season, the Impact will be host to two of them with the LA Galaxy ( Beckham-less or not) and the Seattle Sounders. For the away games, Montreal will be travelling to FC Dallas and Real Salt Lake.

2012 Houston Dynamo Schedule: New Stadium Opens May 12

The Houston Dynamo will follow in the footsteps of many MLS teams opening new stadiums and start the 2012 schedule with seven games on the road. They will open BBVA Compass Stadium on May 12 against D.C. United on NBC Sports Network

Leading up to that game, they will visit Chivas USA, the San Jose Earthquakes, the Seattle Sounders, the Chicago Fire, Columbus Crew, D.C. United and New York Red Bulls. Of those teams, only three made the playoffs in 2011.

Dyanamo Theory pointed out one other nice nugget in the schedule:

Jesse Marsch and Montreal come to town twice...he should get a warm reception.

Marsch, of course, has become Public Enemy No. 1 in Houston after he selected fan favorite Brian Ching in the expansion draft. That situation has yet to be resolved and Ching has threatened to retire rather than ever suit up for the Impact. How that situation plays out should definitely keep this interesting.

2012 FC Dallas Schedule: Fewer Summer Day Games Is A Positive

The MLS schedule makers have finally done FC Dallas a favor, finally limiting the number of day games they play at home. As Big D Soccer points out, this is a welcome change from years past:

-The start times for 5 of the 6 home games in June, July and August have been moved back to 8PM. A fantastic move by FCD and one that has been needed for a long time.

FC Dallas will also get plenty of national TV attention. Including the five Spanish-language broadcasts they'll participate in, they will be on national TV 12 times. They will get five matches on NBC Sports, one on ESPN and one on ESPN2.

One downside to the new schedule was that FC Dallas will play the Houston Dynamo just once. That game will be played at BBVA Compass Bank Stadium on June 16. That game will be broadcast on ESPN2.

For more on the schedule, be sure to check out FC Dallas blog Big D Soccer.

2012 MLS Schedule Released: Sounders, Toronto FC Get First Week Byes

The 2012 MLS schedule was released on Thursday, impressively enough almost exactly at the time the league let rumor out that it would be. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that the Seattle Sounders were given a bye during Week 1 even though the league had previously announced they would be playing at home on March 10. It was also revealed that the 2012 MLS Cup would be played on Dec. 1, meaning the season will last a record 232 days.

That move was surely in response to a request from the Sounders to be given extra time to focus on their CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal against Santos Laguna on March 7 and 14. Toronto FC, as previously revealed, was also given a bye that weekend. They will be playing the LA Galaxy in CCL play on March 7 and 14.

Curiously enough, though, the Galaxy were not afforded the same luxury. In fact, the Galaxy will play four matches between March 7 and 18. In addition to two CCL matches against TFC, they will open at home against Real Salt Lake on March 10 and follow that up with a home match against D.C. United on March 18. The good news for the Galaxy is that after opening CCL play at Toronto, they won't have to leave Home Depot Center again until April 7 when they play at Sporting Kansas City.

One other Galaxy-related surprise was their absence from NBC. The league's newest broadcast partner will have eight Galaxy games on their cable channel, NBC Sports, but will not have any of their games on NBC proper. Those three NBC games will instead go to Portland Timbers-Sounders on Sept. 15, New York Red Bulls-Chicago Fire on Oct. 6 and Philadelphia Union-Red Bulls on Oct. 27. In total, 38 regular-season games will be broadcast on NBC Sports.

For more on the 2012 MLS schedule, be sure to follow this StoryStream.

2012 MLS Schedule: Toronto FC Will Reportedly Get First Week Off

Reports all around the Major League Soccer suggest that the 2012 schedule has essentially been finalized and is expected to be released later this week. Apparently, Canadian Soccer News has gotten their hands on a leaked copy of Toronto FC's schedule which sheds some semblance of light on other parts of the schedule.

The most notable thing about the schedule is that Toronto FC will apparently have a bye during First Kick. At least one team was destined to have that bye, as there are 19 teams, but that it's Toronto FC suggests that maybe MLS is having second thoughts about forcing teams playing in CONCACAF Champions League to partake in the opening weekend.

Toronto FC is scheduled to visit the Seattle Sounders on March 17, just three days after both teams are scheduled to play the second legs of their CCL quarterfinals. If the Sounders are forced to play during First Kick, that would be their fourth match in 11 days while TFC would be playing for just the third time. It would make more sense to give both the Sounders and LA Galaxy opening weekend off in order to provide more competitive fairness.

It was also revealed by CSN that the Voyageurs' Cup will retain its tournament format with Toronto FC most likely hosting FC Edmonton in the first round. With the leaked schedule suggesting TFC will host their only game against the Vancouver Whitecaps on Aug. 8, that would mean no visit to Vancouver in 2012.

For the latest updates on the 2012 MLS schedule, be sure to follow this StoryStream.

MLS First Kick 2012: Red Bulls, FC Dallas Will Be NBC Sports Network's First-Ever Game

FC Dallas will host the New York Red Bulls in the first MLS game to ever be broadcast on NBC Sports Network, the league announced on Tuesday. That game, to be played on March 11, will be a rematch of their playoff encounter from 2011, and is ostensibly the marquee match of a rather lackluster opening weekend for nationally televised games. No other game features two teams that made the playoffs.

The other nationally televised games for MLS First Kick will be Chivas USA hosting the Houston Dynamo on Galavision on March 11; the Vancouver Whitecaps hosting the Montreal Impact on TSN on March 10; and the Portland Timbers hosting the Philadelphia Union on ESPN2 on March 12. The biggest shocker would seem to be the exclusion of the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders from the national TV docket. The Galaxy are the defending MLS Cup champions and the Sounders have historically drawn relatively high ratings.

MLS First Kick 2012: Schedule Announced For Season Openers

Major League Soccer will kickoff it's 17th season on March 10 with six games.

MLS 2012 Format Changes: Maybe This Is A Good Thing - 86 Forever

As much hand-wringing as there has been over the announced changes for the 2012 Major League Soccer season, it's easy to start believing that there is near universal approval. The displeasure was expected to be particularly palpable for Canadian soccer fans, who will no longer be guaranteed to see each of their Great White North rivals at home every year. 

But Whitecaps blog 86 Forever is rarely predictable. They view the changes, essentially, as much ado about very little. Perhaps most relevantly, they point out that the whole idea of playing each team just once at home and away is a relatively rare occurrence:

In 2011, four out of thirty-four Whitecaps regular-season games were against Seattle or Portland: 11.8%. In 2012 it'll be six out of thirty-four: 17.6%. That's the end of the world? In 2010 Vancouver played 13.3% of their regular season games against Portland alone, and every one of them was an occasion. This schedule will not hurt our rivalries; we know this because of all the other times an even more lopsided schedule did not hurt our rivalries.

MLS Owners Approve Changes To Schedule, Playoffs

MLS owners approved several competition changes that will have dramatic effects on the 2012 season, the league announced on Sunday. Among the changes are a hyper-unbalanced schedule that will feature teams playing as many as three games against in-conference opponents, an additional game being added to the conference finals and the MLS Cup being hosted by the team with the highest regular-season point total.

"We have established a fair and compelling format for the 2012 season," MLS Executive Vice President Nelson Rodriguez said in the league release."This regular season will include more games between regional rivals and less total travel than we have seen in recent years. Because of the wide geographic distribution of MLS clubs, this structure should improve the quality of play, while continuing to give every club an equal chance of qualifying for the MLS Cup Playoffs."

While it's been known for some time that the league would go to an unbalanced schedule, but just how unbalanced is now clear: All Western Conference teams will play three games against each other, while the 10-team Eastern Conference will play three games against seven opponents and two against the other two teams. Each team will play their out-of-conference opponents once. The Montreal Impact will join the Eastern Conference, while the Western Conference will remain at nine teams.

As a nod to this unbalanced schedule, their will be five teams from each conference making the playoffs. The Nos. 4 and 5 seeds will play in a wild-card round as they did this year, with the winner going up against the conference's top seed in the conference semifinals.

Unlike in previous years, the conference finals will be two games, just like the conference semis. While this change makes some logical sense, it also diminishes the value of the regular season as it effectively eliminates home-field advantage from that round.

Perhaps because of that change, the league also decided to allow the team with the highest regular season point total will host the MLS Cup. In previous years, the final has been held at a predetermined site.

2012 Major League Soccer Schedule: Don Garber Confirms 34-Game Docket

MLS Commissioner Don Garber confirmed on Thursday that the league would, in fact, go to an unbalanced, 34-game schedule in 2012. SB Nation Soccer had first reported this likelihood back in September when teams first started to release season-ticket packages and multiple league officials anonymously confirmed that an unbalanced schedule was the plan.

For the last two years, MLS teams have played two games against every other league opponent. Next year will mark the first time in the league's history that each team will not both host and visit every other team at least once. With the Montreal Impact giving MLS 19 teams, Garber said further expanding the schedule would have been extremely difficult.

"It’s simple math: 389 games would almost be impossible for us to execute with the other competitions we’re required to play, the weather issues we have … the challenges in a handful of markets, the FIFA dates," he said. "All the thing we have to do differently in the United States from a competitive standpoint, just the travel impact that exists in our country."

Part of the problem may be that Garber's math is not exactly up to snuff. With 19 teams playing a balanced schedule and following the same playoff format, the league would actually have to play 355 games. In fact, the only way the league would have to play exactly 389 games is if they played a balanced schedule with 20 teams and then cut four games out of the playoffs. (For an interesting read on how a balanced schedule could work, give Vancouver Southsider Brett Graham's proposal a read.)

Garber did not reveal much about the format of this 19-team, 34-game schedule, but he did allude to the possibility of it featuring more in-conference games. One scenario could involve every team playing three games against in-conference opponents. That would have the added benefit of limiting cross-country plane trips, as Garber noted the Vancouver Whitecaps had to travel more than 60,000 miles this year. 

"The more games we add, the more travel for our players and reduces the quality of our play," Garber said.

2012 MLS Schedule: League Likely To Break For World Cup Qualifiers, Start Earlier

Major League Soccer will likely open its season the weekend of March 10 in order to allow for a trio of breaks during World Cup Qualifying weekends, Toronto FC officials reportedly told season-ticket holders on Thursday. The report in Canadian Soccer News also indicates that club officials added further confirmation to earlier reports from SB Nation that the schedule would likely consist of 34 games.

If the opening weekend is indeed scheduled for March 10, the league's First Kick would almost certainly be on the previous Thursday. That would make for the earliest ever start to a MLS season.

Such an early start could have ramifications on CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals, which are scheduled for March 6-8 and 13-15. This would almost certainly mean the season will open someplace other than Seattle's CenturyLink Field, which has hosted First Kick in each of the last three years as the Sounders have already qualified for the quarterfinals. 

For the latest updates on the 2012 MLS schedule, be sure to follow this StoryStream.

MLS Planning To Abandon Balanced Schedule In 2012, Play 34 Games

Anonymous league sources confirm that MLS is planning to stick with 34-game schedule, rather than expand to 36 games and maintain balance.