General details of 2022 NWSL schedule unveiled

The NWSL announced the broad contours of the 2022 season on Saturday, which is surely of interest to Angel City FC, who will be entering the league for their inaugural season.

The 2022 season, the league’s 10th, will begin with the NWSL Challenge Cup for a third consecutive year. Training camp is scheduled to begin on Feb. 1, with teams getting six weeks’ preparation, and the Challenge Cup will kick off on Mar. 19. The format for the cup competition will be three four-team groups, so presumably the two California teams plus the Pacific Northwest teams, with teams playing home and away in group play.

The Challenge Cup final is scheduled for May 7, and from there it will be the NWSL regular season.

The regular season will be a balanced schedule, every team playing each other home and away, in what the league is touting as the first balanced schedule since 2014.

The top six finishers in the single table will qualify for the playoffs, and the top two seeds will be on a bye for the opening round, something that did not turn out to be advantageous in the 2021 playoffs, but alas. This means 50 percent of the teams in 2022 will make the playoffs, certainly not impossible for an expansion team to do but not a given, either.

Finally, the NWSL Championship Final will take place on the weekend of Oct. 28.

So that’s the lay of the land for the upcoming season for Angel City, events in the world permitting, of course. Exciting times ahead for the new team on the block!

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