The 2022 Season Schedule is Revealed

The USL Championship today released the much-anticipated full 2022 season schedule.

There’s a lot to digest, but perhaps foremost in fans’ minds was how the interconference games would pan out. For the Legion, there are some interesting matchups.

The Legion will be hosting the Colorado Springs Switchbacks (March 26), Las Vegas Lights (May 18), San Diego Loyal (August 13) and San Antonio FC (October 9). This means we will have the league’s reigning Golden Boot winner Hadji Barry in just the second home game of the year, US soccer legend Landon Donovan in midsummer, and a chance at revenge for last year’s loss in Texas in the second-last game of the season. We’ll also have some laughs when the Lights come to town. With the elevation of head coach Steve Cherundolo to LAFC of MLS, the Lights don’t even have a coach right now (they’ve gone through 5 in just 4 seasons so far).

As for heading out West, the first trip is to Phoenix Rising (June 4), then New Mexico United (June 25), followed by Sacramento Republic (July 16) and lastly Oakland Roots (October 1). Those should all be good games too. Phoenix of course will be a challenge, and the New Mexico fixture smells like a deliberate act on the schedulers part – that being the new home of one Neco Brett.

For the Legion this season, moving to Protective Stadium has also caused some issues. In addition to being the home of UAB Blazers football, this year Protective will also host the World Games in July and, although this has not yet been officially announced, is assumed to be the venue for nearly all USFL games this spring (the others would be at Legion Field). Obviously, that means some clashes are bound to occur.

As a result, 4 of the Legion’s first 5 games are at home, the last of those being April 10. Two of those home games are against the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Louisville City, so they aren’t exactly cakewalks. The Three Sparks have 3 home games through the remainder of April and May, but all of them are Wednesday night games. Then comes the really hard part: from May 27 through July 16, the team has 8 games scheduled. 7 of those are on the road. There is at least a 17-day gap early in that stretch (yes, no games for over two weeks!), but then there are 3 games in 8 days (at Louisville, Atlanta United 2 and the Charleston Battery), followed by the Sacramento trip a week later.

After that the Three Sparks play 6 of 8 at home through late July and August, and also have the final two games of the season at home.

Bear in mind that somewhere along the way, Open Cup games may (hopefully) have to get worked into the schedule. 

All told, it will be a rollercoaster ride of a season.