Orlando City’s Full Schedule Announced for the 2019 Major League Soccer Season

Major League Soccer released its full schedule of games for 2019 today, so now we know when, where, and how often Orlando City will play each MLS team this season. As always happens around this time of the year, the time has come to plan those road trips and those days off for early tailgating for mid-week games.

We already knew about the March 2 home opener against New York City FC — the fifth consecutive time the Lions will open at home; the third home opening match in the club’s downtown stadium; and the third opening day meeting against NYCFC in five MLS seasons. Now we know the schedule in full. The Lions will close the season on Sunday, Oct. 6 at home against the Chicago Fire at 4 p.m.

Orlando City will face each of the 12 Western Conference teams once, including:

• FC Dallas, LA Galaxy, Vancouver Whitecaps, Sporting Kansas City, Los Angeles FC, and Colorado Rapids at home only.
• Real Salt Lake, Houston Dynamo, Minnesota United, San Jose Earthquakes, Seattle Sounders, and Portland Timbers away only.

Orlando will face each Eastern Conference opponent twice — once at home and once on the road. The so-called rivalry games against Atlanta United will take place away on Sunday May 12 and at home on Friday, Aug. 23. The latter is part of Heineken Rivalry Week and both match-ups in the Southeast Showdown will be televised nationally on ESPN.

With FC Cincinnati joining this season, Orlando City will face a new opponent in league play for the third consecutive year. The Lions will play FCC for the first time on Sunday, May 19 and will likely be weary from playing at Atlanta and at Seattle within the previous week. Orlando City’s first trip to Cincinnati will be Sunday, Sept. 29 at 5 p.m.

The Lions will play 21 Saturday games, six Sundays, four Wednesdays, one Thursday, and two Fridays. Orlando will play five games in March, four in April, five in May, three in June, six in July, six in August, four in September, and one in October. The light schedule in June is due to a Gold Cup break from June 14-21.

Checking on the Florida heat? The Lions will play in the afternoon on 12 occasions in 2019, with seven of those at home. Of those seven afternoon home games — noted here as any game that begins prior to 7 p.m. — none of them will take place in June, July, August, or September. Three will happen in March, one in April, two in May, and one in October.

Please note there is one game time to be determined when Orlando visits Philadelphia on July 6. The Lions will also host the 2019 MLS All-Star Game this year, which will take place on Wednesday, July 31.

Orlando City has no long home stands this year, with no more than two consecutive games at Orlando City Stadium at any point in 2019. However, five of the first eight matches will be in the purple palace. The longest road trip is three straight games from June 1-29 (broken up by the two-week Gold Cup break) at Montreal, D.C., and Columbus. In other words, the Lions have no home games in the June heat.

The 2019 MLS Cup playoffs start on Wednesday, Oct. 19 and conclude on Nov. 10. Is this the year the lads in purple join the postseason party? Please let it be so.

Here is the complete rundown:

2019 Orlando City Schedule