2025 Season Schedule Announced; Atlanta United Friendly Confirmed

The USL today released the entire regular season schedule along with the schedule for the group games in the expanded Jägermeister Cup.

But before that the relatively open secret of a friendly against Atlanta United has been made official. The game will be played Saturday, February 1st at 3:30pm. Tickets range from $15 to $38 but season ticket holders get this game as part of their package. This will be the fifth exhibition game between the two teams. Additional preseason games are a certainty and presumably will be announced later. That may include games earlier than this one; Atlanta will play Chattanooga FC of MLS Next Pro January 25th, so it’s possible the Legion will be doing much the same to get ready.

As for the USL Championship regular season the first thing to note is that the various rumors were at best partly true. The league will continue to have two 12-team conferences, not three 8-team groups. The Legion will not, despite being the furthest west of the Eastern Conference teams, move to the Western Conference. Instead, as some had posited, newcomers Lexington SC will head that way although Louisville City and Indy Eleven as well as the Three Sparks are further west. That’s what you get for being the new kid, I guess.

As indicated in the Jägermeister Cup expansion announcement, the Championship regular season will be shortened by 4 games, to be replaced by the 4 Cup group games. The 4 missing games will be interconference. For the Legion, the 4 Western teams they will not play are New Mexico United, Lexington, Las Vegas Lights and Monterey Bay Union. Which means Ronaldo Damus will get to play his former team; the Colorado Springs Switchbacks visit the Magic City Saturday, July 19th.

Interestingly, FC Tulsa is on the regular season schedule. But Tulsa is also on the Legion’s Jäger Cup schedule, which seems like a bit of a slipup on the USL’s part. And both games are in Tulsa. Double slipup. The other three Cup opponents are Chattanooga Red Wolves, Forward Madison (both at home; a big advantage over League One teams) and Indy Eleven. The first game will be Chattanooga on Sunday, April 27th.

The Legion’s regular season schedule kicks off with two straight home games, both on Saturdays in early March (the UFL season starts in late March this year so that is an unexpected boon). The first game is March 8th against Loudoun United followed a week later by Louisville City. The next two weeks are also both Saturday games, on the road at Detroit City and Pittsburgh Riverhounds. That’s quite a way to start the season.

There are a few other points of note. The home game against Rhode Island is Wednesday matchup on May 14th, which kinda sucks. The season finale is at the Charleston Battery on Saturday, October 25th. Yikes. The first season series against Eastern teams to complete will be Detroit City as the Legion visits the Motor City Sunday, May 18th.

This is going to be a slightly different season with the Jäger Cup being thrown into the mix. And somewhere in all of that there will be the US Open Cup, which should start for Championship teams some time in April.