Good afternoon folks. I’ve arrived from Houston and found MLS schedules already out. The Red Bulls 2008 schedule is an interesting one, but also disappointing in some ways.
What’s disappointing? MLS not scheduling the Red Bulls first trip to Chicago until Sept. 6 is a serious mistake. There’s no secret that Chicago Fire’s fans and club are unhappy with the circumstances of coach Juan Carlos Osorio’s departure. Why not play on that controversy? Red Bulls at Chicago should have been early in the year. By September the Osorio-Fire storyline will be old news. I’m sure some folks at MLS HQ think that’s a good thing but I think it’s just plain clueless. And the worst part? The Red Bulls first trip to Chicago coincides with what should be a USA-Cuba World Cup qualifier. AWFUL.
What else is disappointing? How about the Red Bulls’ two trips to Los Angeles being night games? This has been the standard for years but it’s just dumb because the late start times mean zero coverage in the East Coast. At least the Red Bulls’ trip to San Jose will be a day game.
David Beckham and the Galaxy come to Giants Stadium on July 19 in what should be the biggest crowd of the year (barring an international doubleheader we don’t know about yet).
The Red Bulls’ first trip to hell RFK Stadium to face D.C. United comes on June 14. We all know about the Red Bulls’ terrible record at RFK. No word yet if the club will sacrifice a cow or chicken before this match to try and break the Mexico-vs.-USA-like futility on the road.
Here is the Red Bulls’ full schedule. Share your thoughts on it below.
Red Bulls 2008 MLS Schedule
-
Apr 05 Columbus Crew 7:30
-
Apr 12 at FC Dallas 8:30
-
Apr 19 New England Revolution 7:30
-
Apr 27 San Jose 3:00
-
May 01 at Toronto FC 7:00
-
May 10 at Los Angeles Galaxy 10:30
-
May 17 Kansas City Wizards 7:30
-
May 25 Chicago Fire 3:00
-
May 31 at Houston Dynamo 8:30
-
Jun 05 Chivas USA 7:30
-
Jun 14 at D.C. United 7:30
-
Jun 21 FC Dallas Home 7:30
-
Jun 28 at Chivas USA 10:30
-
Jul 04 at Colorado Rapids 9:30
-
Jul 10 at Kansas City Wizards 8:00
-
Jul 19 Los Angeles Galaxy 6:30
-
Jul 27 at San Jose Away 3:00
-
Aug 02 at New England Revolution 7:30
-
Aug 09 D.C. United 7:30
-
Aug 17 Toronto FC 5:00
-
Aug 24 Houston Dynamo 3:00
-
Aug 30 at D.C. United 7:30
-
Sep 06 at Chicago Fire 8:30
-
Sep 13 Real Salt Lake 7:30
-
Sep 18 at Columbus Crew 7:00
-
Sep 27 Colorado Rapids 7:30
-
Oct 04 Toronto FC 7:30
-
Oct 09 at Real Salt Lake 10:00
-
Oct 18 Columbus Crew 7:30
- Oct 23 at Chicago Fire 9:00
I haven’t looked at the MNT conflicts yet — I hope the NY-Chicago match is not played at the sametime as US-Cuba — but besides that issue…
During the school year, home games that are scheduled for weekday evenings or Sunday afternoons are always problematic for me; I prefer the Saturday 6pm, 7pm or 7:30pm home game start-times. So there are three games that are bad for me; not terrific but could have been worse.
I would generally prefer to have played 32 games so that there would have been three games against each team in your own conference. Since this is not the case, I would generally prefer to face New England three times but this year it makes sense to face Chicago three times instead.
It is hard to please everyone with these schedules but MLS should never have games that overlap a USMNT game.
Any idea when the international friendlies will be played by the New York Red Bulls?
Wait … I figured out what was throwing me: Week 17 sends on Saturday, July 19, 2008, but week 18 begins on Sunday, July 27, 2008. Must be the all-star break in between — even though that is not listed in the schedule …
Maybe it is because I am counting weeks from Wednesday through Monday? (There are no Tuesday matches …) There’s on Monday match, and most week’s a Sunday match. Given that, the last game of the week is on the following days:
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
That’s 30 weeks???
I just counted and it’s 31 weekends. The Red Bulls opening weekend game against San Jose was cancelled, so it’s 30 weeks for both of those teams.
Also, to EdTheRed, that was not cheating by Bradley. He just used the rules. Of course the rules were changed the next season just for that incident. Anyway, that was the greatest MetroStars goal ever. There was a fantastic goal scored by Woly that many regard as being the best but, for me, the Gaven goal agains DC was the greatest, because of the circumstances and it was against DC.
I’m only counting 30 weeks in that schedule. I thought it was supposed to be 31 (per MLS):
http://web.mlsnet.com/mls/components/schedule/2008/season_print.jsp
Ives
Every so often you list your top 25 teams. How about listing the top 25 (or 15 or whatever) leagues around the world. Curious to see how you think the South American leagues stack up against the European ones. This might be pretty tough to compile, but I think it would be pretty interesting…
Damn it!! 2nd year in a row they schedule the game @ Toronto during the week… I was hoping for a saturday match so I can finally make it to BMO field.
Why are they doing the Revs game in April? Too many of the fans have kids who are committed to soccer games on that day to make the trip from Boston to jersey. We had such a huge crowd last year in July because there were no conflicts on that side. I realize July was out because of the Superliga, but they could have tried for August.
Mike
Off topic but I havent seen it posted here and Ives has brought this topic up before so here’s a link about the EPL playing games in foreign countries. http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_3117424,00.html
The RedBulls are still paying for the bad juju left behind at RFK after “Cheatin'” Bob Bradley’s Eddie Gaven “goalkeeper” substitution.
listen, I have come to expect that some matches will be dulled due to international conflicts. However, they KILLED the Chicago vs. RBNY match with that scheduling. AND the geniuses scheduled Chicago at LA a day after a friendly date! They effectively annihilated 2 matches in their 3 biggest markets (2 in their 3rd biggest) due to poor scheduling.
If ever there was a time for RBNY, LA and Chicago to be playing the Colorado’s, RSL’s and Columbus’s of the world, those are the dates.
I can’t wait til most everyone has stadiums so they have no excuses to pull this garbage anymore.
Ives, once again MLS demonstrates why it is scorned abroad.
Its one thing to have the season schedule fall in an opposite configuration to the vast majority of quality leagues in the world.
But to blatantly disregard international dates… MLS comes away from this looking more inept, more uninformed, and more purely mediocre than usual. If MLS ever wants to dream of becoming a second tier league on par with the France, Holland, and Portugal they need to acknowledge this little fly in the ointment called INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL.
Everytime someone stands up for MLS, as I do on occasion, the league then demonstrates how sheerly incompetent and low in quality it must be. I’m nonplussed at this point. Two conclusions that could be drawn by outsiders-
A: MLS does not think it is good enough to have any players who could compete in international competition.
B: MLS doesn’t understand FIFA dates and doesn’t want to…
These are certainly some of the most negative conclusions, but at this point who could blame them?
In regards to Toronto matches being scheduled close to Canadian National Team matches, Toronto doesn’t exactly have anyone that’s good enough to be needed by the national team.
any news from red bulls camp?
If D.C. United, Chivas USA, Houston Dynamo and New England Revolution are in SuperLiga, who plays in Champions League?
Surely those 4 teams can’t handle all those extra games!
Let’s just all meet at a Best Buy & share a Red Bull and continue to hate on NE, DC and of course LA.
Here’s to hoping BB calls in Jozy for the US/Cuba qualifier. I will miss seeing him in person again (he was in the crowd at TP) but alas I’d like to beat NYRB this year.
GO FIRE!
At least the Red Bull website didn’t mistake their schedule with San Jose’s like Chicago’s did…
JCO will get a very special welcome to Chicago from Section 8. Bank on it.
By the way, the Fire FO just offically recognized the inevitable and declared a second section of the Firehouse a full-time SRO only area for Section 8. How’s your supporters season ticket sales goin’ there in Jersey?
I think with the Fire playing in NY on Memorial Day weekend, there will be plenty of us Section 8 guys out there giving Osorio hell.
The biggest dissapointment regarding the Red Bulls schedule is that there is one game in Toronto and it’s on a THURSDAY. Jeez, I was looking forward to going on a road trip to Canada this year.
Dime a dozen coach.
Posted by: Nate
Gotta love the Chicago revisionism! But LOL @ fuego, that was a good one.
didn’t we play DC twice last year away as well?
Bgnewf, i think MLS giving Toronto a team was an awfully big sign of respect and consideration.
the truth is that MLS has always been screwing over all of the teams when it comes to the international calendar.
Ives while I’m sur ethe venom won’t be as bad , unless the fire struggle, in September I still think Section 8 will have some things ready for JCO
Bgnewf- What does the US do to get some respect, there are plenty of international conflicts all around.
What does Canada have to do in order to get any respect and consideration from MLS??? There are about 4 dates in June and July that conflict with or are a day before or a day after dates that the Canadian mens national team.
This has nothing to do with the RedBulls, however this was also released by MLS along with the schedule.
“The four teams with the best regular season records in 2007 will represent the League in the second edition of SuperLiga, to be played later this summer. The teams are D.C. United, Chivas USA, Houston Dynamo and New England Revolution. The complete SuperLiga schedule and the Mexican club representatives will be announced in the coming weeks.”
I’m glad the teams earned their spots, instead of given to them. I would be looking forward to a Chivas USA vs. Chivas match-up.
The early stuff I’ve seen suggests that MLS has completely ignored the international calendar across the board. Really dumb, even by MLS standards.
I don’t think anyone in Chicago lost sleep over Osorio leaving, let alone think it would some sort of “heated reunion”. Pretty happy that we got Nyarko out of the deal actually.
The guy got an attractive offer, preferred living in NY to Chicago, and made his choice. Dime a dozen coach.
The reason why Red Bull doesn’t visit the Fire until September is because Osorio’s wife doesn’t like Chicago in the summer.
I’m disappointed that the “rivalry-based” format didn’t yield a 3rd game against New England! CLEARLY they’re the Red Bulls’ second closest rival to DC, and, if I’m not mistaken, both visits by the Revs to Giants Stadium last season yielded big crowds, close to 20,000
Damn, they are not in San Jose until late uly. so much for seeing Altidore. he’ll be sold by then.
Ives, I’m assuming the bolded fixtures are the ones you find most appealing…if so, why the Revs game on the 19th?