Sounders Release 2018 Schedule

The Sounders 2018 schedule came out this morning. And it definitely has some interesting angles to it.

  1. The 1st round of the Concacaf Champions League matches are the week before the MLS season starts. So you can travel down to Santa Tecla, El Salvador on Feb 22 for Leg 1, or just wait until Thursday, March 1 for Leg 2 at home.
  2. MLS Opening Day is Sunday, March 4 vs the newest entry into the league, Los Angeles FC.
  3. After that, you have to wait 27 days for the next home match, a 3/31 7:00pm tilt vs Montreal.
  4. If you’re ready for more soccer, grab your patience pants. It’s 22 more days before you get to see Minnesota United come for a day game on Sunday 4/22. So if you are counting at home, that’s just 3 home games in the first (and rainiest) 9 weeks of the season. That seems like a good deal for us fans.
  5. Things don’t get too much busier in May. Dates on the 5th vs Columbus and the 26th vs RSL is all we get. So we enter June with just 5 home matches under our belt.
  6. That means things start to get busy in June. 6/9 vs DC United, 6/23 vs Chicago and then the big one. 6/30 vs Portland.
  7. After a 3 week break, we really get into the meat of the home schedule in late July and August. Hope you didn’t have vacation plans.  7/21 vs Vancouver, 7/29 vs NYCFC, 8/12 vs Dallas, 8/18 vs Sigi and the Galaxy, 9/1 vs Sporting KC.  That’s 5 home games in 7 weeks.
  8. As the kids head back to school, we close the season on a pretty regular cadence of home and away matches. 9/19 vs Philly, 9/29 vs Colorado, 10/6 vs Houston and the finale 10/28 vs San Jose.

That’s 17 MLS home matches and one Concacaf match, with 14 of them coming in May – October. There will be more Concacaf matches, likely against a Mexican League squad, if they progress past El Salvador.  So I suspect no friendlies will be officially scheduled until we see what happens in the Champions League.

If you’re looking for good excuses to get out of Seattle, a couple of away matches stand out: Sunday 4/29 in LA is a good time to escape the rain. July 4 in Colorado could be a lot of fun.  And July 15 in Atlanta would be a fun excuse to see their new stadium, especially since it’s indoors.

Happy 2018. Go Sounders.