Sounder at Heart reacted immediately yesterday to the MLS schedule announcement, posting an
analysis of strength of schedule. They did a great job collecting the data, and concluded that
"Seattle's getting it about as good as you can get it in the West, but of course the league bends
over backwards for the Galaxy once again.
Major League Soccer announced it's schedule for the 2012 season. All of the 19 clubs will play
34 matches, 17 at home and 17 away, during 34 weeks. Within each conference, each club will play
the same number of in-conference and out-of-conference games.
All 323 matches will be televised live – 89 by national network partners ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN
Deportes, NBC, NBC Sports Network, and Univision (TeleFutura, Galavisión and Univision Deportes)
in the United States.
Start Marking Your Calendar: The MLS Schedule is Out!Major League Soccer seems to finally be
getting the hang of this scheduling thing. The 2012 schedule was released today, more than a month
earlier than last year's version. For Red Bulls fans, there are some big changes to keep in mind.
First, the schedule is once again unbalanced, with Red Bulls playing each Western Conference team
only once, while they will face Eastern Conference foes either two or three times, depending on the
opponent.
Photo: Courtesy MLS Soccer
MLS
LA Galaxy defeated Houston Dynamo 1–0 to win the MLS Cup. Landon Donovan scored the lone goal
and was named MVP. Player ratings are here.
All teams must submit their protected list to the league for Tuesday's Expansion Draft by 5pm
today.
The league made two big announcements on Sunday, one concerning the shift to a conference-based
schedule, the about changes to the playoff format aimed a rewarding those teams with better regular
season records.
Don Garber and the MLS front office have a huge task in front of them for 2012. (Getty
Images)
One thing is certain, 2012 will be different. How different for Major League Soccer is the
question.
MLS will have 19 clubs next season with Montreal entering the mix. This all means the schedule
gets a little trickier.
