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Major League Soccer announced its list of opening day fixtures for the 2020 season with expansion teams Nashville SC and Inter Miami learning their first regular season opponents.
David Beckham’s Inter Miami will play away to 2019 Supporters’ Shield winners LAFC while Nashville hosts 2018 MLS Cup champions Atlanta United.
The league is breaking away from soccer’s tradition of having each team play every opponent as it grows to 26 franchises with the additions of Miami and Nashville, but will keep a 34-game regular-season schedule.
A team will play each of its 12 conference opponents home and away, and will face only 10 of the 13 teams in the other conference.
Nashville, who will play in MLS’ Western Conference, opens Feb. 29 at home against Atlanta and Eastern Conference Inter Miami starts March 1 at LAFC, the league said. Defending champion Seattle opens March 1 against Chicago.
Other Feb. 29 openers are Colorado at D.C. United, New England at Montreal, LA Galaxy at Houston, Toronto at San Jose, Philadelphia at FC Dallas, Real Salt Lake at Orlando City and Sporting Kansas City at Vancouver. Games the following day include New York City FC at Columbus, FC Cincinnati at New York Red Bulls and Minnesota at Portland.
Home openers on March 7 are Chicago at New England, Red Bulls at Salt Lake, NYCFC at Toronto, Cincinnati at Atlanta, Houston at Kansas City, Orlando at Colorado and Vancouver at LA Galaxy. Four more home openers are set for March 14: Dallas at NYCFC, LA Galaxy at Miami, D.C. at Cincinnati and San Jose at Philadelphia.
The final home openers are Red Bulls at Minnesota on March 15 and Atlanta at Chicago on March 21 as the Fire return downtown to Soldier Field, their home from 1997-2005. They played in suburban Bridgeview from 2006 through last season.
Information from Reuters and the Associated Press was used in this story.