Orlando City’s Full Schedule Announced for the 2016 Major League Soccer Season

Major League Soccer released its full schedule of games for 2016 today, so now we know who, when and where Orlando City will play its MLS foes this season. It’s time to plan those road trips and those days off for early tailgating for mid-week games.

We've known for a while about the home opener March 6 against Real Salt Lake at 2 p.m. Now we've got the full 34-game picture. Orlando City will close the season at home for the first time when it hosts D.C. United on Oct. 23 at 4 p.m.

Orlando City will face each Western Conference club once, including:

• Real Salt Lake, Houston Dynamo, Seattle Sounders, San Jose Earthquakes, and defending champion Portland Timbers at home only.
• LA Galaxy, Vancouver Whitecaps, Colorado Rapids, FC Dallas, and Sporting Kansas City on the road only.

Those Western teams in the first group will be making their first visits to Orlando for MLS play, while the Lions will be making their first trips since joining Major League Soccer to the second set of cities above. Orlando City will have one fewer trip to the far west coast than last year (when the Lions visited Portland, San Jose and Seattle), but the Vancouver match will be the furthest the team has traveled for a league game yet. The Lions will play at altitude against Colorado and swap Houston for Dallas in their Texas visit.

As for the Eastern Conference, Orlando will face six Eastern Conference opponents three times, hosting New England Revolution, Montreal Impact, and Toronto FC twice each, and visiting New York Red Bulls, New York City FC, and Philadelphia Union twice. The club will play the remaining Eastern Conference twice – once each home and away (D.C. United, Chicago Fire, Columbus Crew).

The Lions will play 14 Sunday games, nine Saturdays, five Fridays, five Wednesdays and a road Monday at FC Dallas on July 4. It's the second straight year the club has been on the road for Independence Day.

Orlando will play three games in March, five in April, five in May, two in June (both at home, but that's also the month of the Copa America break), six in July, five in August, five in September and three in October.

The Lions play at home only once in September, with four road games that month. July will also be tough, with two home and four road contests. Orlando City has three home games and two road matches in both May and August.

Like last season, the Lions will be on national television 16 times. This year, Orlando City will be on FS1 six times, on UniMas five times, ESPN four times and ESPN2 once.

Here is the complete rundown:

* FS1

**UniMas

***ESPN

*%ESPN2