NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Soccer’s 2022 season will start Feb. 26 and its postseason final will be on Nov. 5, a month earlier than this year, to complete play before the World Cup starts on Nov. 21.
The league said Friday that its regular season will end Oct. 9.
Charlotte, an expansion team that starts play next season, will join the Eastern Conference. Nashville will move to the Western Conference, leaving two 14-team conferences.
Each team will again play 34 matches, two against each conference opponent and eight games against teams from the other conference. Teams will have at most five midweek matches, with a goal of one each in May, June and July, and two in August.
The league said it will avoid scheduling games in the FIFA international fixture windows of March, June and September, but will at a team’s request consider playing in the March window of the second weekend of the extended June window.
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