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Los Angeles Football Club announced their inaugural preseason schedule on Wednesday. With many of the details already circulating, there were few surprises, but here’s the lowdown from the team.
Training camp will open on Jan. 22, with proceedings taking place at UCLA while LAFC’s permanent training center is being constructed at Cal State LA. The training camp opens on the first day allowed by the MLS CBA for teams to start camp, which given that they are starting from scratch, getting the earliest possible start makes sense.
There are four preseason games announced for the moment:
- Feb. 2 vs. Toronto FC (1 pm PT, @UCLA)
- Feb. 8 vs. New York City FC (3 pm PT, @UCLA)
- Feb. 18 vs. Vancouver Whitecaps (3 pm PT, @UCLA)
- Feb. 25 at Sacramento Republic (2 pm PT, @Papa Murphy’s Park)
Don’t be surprised if they add some more scrimmages/games as they go, as that’s a pretty common thing for teams to do during the preseason. For example, I’d guess there will be a couple games against USL teams, possibly even Orange County SC, before all is said and done.
The caveat to all of this is that training sessions and games at UCLA are closed to the public, according to a release from LAFC. That seems unfortunate for fans, but I would provide two points to that: I would expect LAFC to hold an open training session or two, possibly at Banc of California Stadium at some point, and a desire to keep preparations close to the vest is a common feature of Bob Bradley’s teams, so it’s not a surprise he doesn’t want people to come and go as they please.
Still, we have dates! For preseason! The first LAFC season is right around the corner!
What do you think? Leave a comment below!