2008 Beckham schedule (the other Galaxy players will be there too)

The Beckham tour schedule has been released and he is hitting all the MLS cities this time around. The question, however, is will this sequel be able to live up to the hype of the original? Find out at a city near you for the light cost of a grade A soccer ticket.

And with nothing more to add, here it is, the Los Angeles Galaxy's 2008 schedule:

03/29 - Saturday @ Colorado Rapids 7:30 pm

04/03 - Thursday San Jose Earthquakes 7:30 pm
04/13 - Sunday Toronto FC 3:00 pm
04/19 - Saturday Houston Dynamo 7:30 pm
04/26 - Saturday Chivas USA 7:30 pm

05/03 - Saturday @ Real Salt Lake 7:00 pm
05/10 - Saturday New York Red Bulls 7:30 pm
05/18 - Sunday @ FC Dallas 2:00 pm
05/24 - Saturday Kansas City Wizards 7:30 pm
05/31 - Saturday @ Toronto FC 3:30 pm

06/07 - Saturday Colorado Rapids 7:30 pm
06/14 - Saturday @ San Jose Earthquakes 7:00 pm
06/21 - Saturday Columbus Crew 7:30 pm
06/29 - Sunday @ D.C. United 12:00 pm

07/04 - Friday New England Revolution 7:30 pm
07/10 - Thursday Chivas USA 8:00 pm
07/19 - Saturday @ New York Red Bulls 6:30 pm
07/27 - Sunday @ FC Dallas 6:00 pm

08/03 - Sunday @ San Jose Earthquakes 12:00 pm
08/14 - Thursday @ Chivas USA 7:30 pm
08/21 - Thursday Chicago Fire 7:30 pm
08/30 - Saturday @ New England Revolution 7:30 pm

09/06 - Saturday Real Salt Lake 7:30 pm
09/13 - Saturday @ Kansas City Wizards 7:00 pm
09/20 - Saturday D.C. United 8:00 pm
09/25 - Thursday @ Chicago Fire 8:00 pm

10/04 - Saturday @ Columbus Crew 7:30 pm
10/12 - Sunday Colorado Rapids 5:00 pm
10/19 - Sunday @ Houston Dynamo 6:00 pm
10/26 - Sunday FC Dallas 12:00 pm

Overall, this is a much easier schedule for the team then last year since they don't have a majority of their schedule crammed into the final two months. Even more amazing, there is not a single week where they play two games and there is only one road trip that lasts more then one game but two of those games are in California, with one of them against Chivas and they have over a week break between the final two road games (7/19 @ NY, 7/27 @ Dallas, 8/03 @ San Jose, 8/14 @ Chivas).

If last year's LA schedule was all about crunching everything they could out of Beckham, then this year's schedule is all about giving the team a chance to show what they can do.

Fox Soccer to start off the season with a MLS doubleheader

Fox Soccer Channel will host their first-ever MLS doubleheader when the new season kicks off on March 29. FSC will air both the Houston Dynamo-New England Revolution MLS Cup rematch at 7:30pm (ET) followed by the LA Galaxy-Colorado Rapids 'we both missed the playoffs' match at 9:30pm (ET).

The network will begin their broadcast at 7pm with a 30-minute pre-game show and will conclude with a 30-minute post game after the LA-Rapids game.

What an excellent way to start off a season. Hopefully at some point this will become the norm instead of a one-time thing.

2008 MLS scheduling problems

The 2008 MLS schedule is just a few weeks away from release, but there are a number of problems they need to overcome. Here are the scheduling issues as presented by Steve Davis:

- SuperLiga
- Concacaf Champions League
- US Open Cup
- 2008 Olympics
- ESPN2 Thursday night broadcasts
- World Cup Qualifying (the league will play on international dates)
- No national broadcasts from San Jose
- Stadium scheduling conflicts
- Beckham
- International friendly competitions

That's a lot to cram into a 31-week regular season and no doubt some items (US Open Cup) are going to get the short end of things. This will upset some people (like myself), but instead of going off on why it is more important to support say the oldest team cup competition in the US instead of booking a meaningless game against a pre-season EPL side in July, I will need to remember that MLS is a business and although they are doing much better these past 5-years, they still are not in the position to pass up easy money.

I'll also have to remind myself that when MLS players are called away for international duty and miss a number of important games down the stretch, that the league can't take those weeks off because of their contract with ESPN2 requiring a game. Plus, with a 30-game schedule, if MLS took more then one a weekend off, that would mean there would need to be more mid-week games and we all know what the attendance at those are like.

So I will withhold any anger I might feel when the schedule comes out (provided there is nothing really stupid like a couple weekends with light play early in the season only to cram more games in late) and remember that a number of these problems are the result of the league growing (SuperLiga, TV contract, Beckham).

Now let's see if I can live up to this resolution.