Major League Soccer announces 2010 schedule
Major League Soccer on Wednesday unveiled its 2010 regular-season schedule and, for the first time in the league’s 15-year history, it conforms to the pattern set by Europe’s leading leagues.
Each of the 16 teams will play the other 15 teams once at home and once on the road in a 30-game schedule during the March 25-October 24 regular season.
That follows the script long established in Europe and should lead to an increase in MLS attendance because fans will have only one opportunity of seeing each visiting team and its stars during the regular season.
“It’s good,” said Stephen Hamilton, general manager of Chivas USA. “You get everyone home and away and there are no excuses, I guess.”
Locally, Chivas USA and the Galaxy will get an early chance to size each other up. The first of their two matches is on April 1 at the Home Depot Center, when the Galaxy will be the “home” team.
“We have to play them some time,” Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena said Wednesday. “It’s always a great game.
“It’s nice to have two of our first three games at home and to end up with our last two games at home. We’re hopeful we can build a team that has the kind of depth that allows us to have success with this schedule.”
Chivas USA Coach Martin Vasquez was not overly pleased at having to face his team’s biggest rival so early in the schedule.
“It’s a big game, it has been in the past, and as a coach you would hope to have a few games [beforehand] so you get in the right rhythm and things are clicking for you,” he said Wednesday. “But we’ll do our best to be ready for the game and come out on top.”
They will not play each other again until Oct. 3, when Chivas USA will be the host. That game should be the better of the two because the World Cup will have long been over with and both teams should be at full strength and eyeing the playoffs.
In addition to league competition, Chivas USA also will be one of four MLS teams participating in the SuperLiga, along with the Chicago Fire, Houston Dynamo and New England Revolution, against four teams representing the Mexican league. Dates and schedules for that tournament have yet to be finalized.
Two of the most anticipated matches on the 2010 schedule for the Galaxy will be the pair of games against Real Salt Lake, which defeated Los Angeles on penalty kicks after a 1-1 tie in the 2009 MLS championship game in Seattle.
The Galaxy plays host to Real on April 17 at the Home Depot Center and visits Salt Lake on June 9.
Galaxy stars David Beckham and Landon Donovan will miss the latter game because they are likely to be with the England and U.S. national teams at the World Cup in South Africa. Depending on how far their teams advance in the world championship, the two could miss anywhere from three to six MLS games while with their national teams.
Beckham, who is on loan to AC Milan in Italy’s Serie A, will not return to the Galaxy until mid to late July, after the World Cup, and will miss a minimum of half the Galaxy’s 30 games, just as he did in 2009.
The league is taking a two-week break from June 11, when the World Cup begins, to June 25, because fan attention is more likely to be focused on South Africa than on MLS.
Chivas USA also will be missing a player or two during the World Cup, with defender Jonathan Bornstein and midfielder Sacha Kljestan both in the running for a U.S. roster spot. They, too, could miss three to six MLS games.
Southern California fans will have two opportunities to see the league’s newest team, the expansion Philadelphia Union, which will visit Carson to play the Galaxy on May 1 and Chivas USA on July 3.
Among other noteworthy schedule items:
* All 240 games will be televised regionally or nationally, with one third live on national television.
* Eighty-five percent of games will be played on weekends, including 75 percent on Saturdays.
* The 15th MLS All-Star game will be played at Reliant Stadium in Houston in late July or early August.
* MLS Cup 2010, the league’s championship game, will be played Nov. 21 at a venue to be announced.
