One of the great days in any season is the day they release the fixtures. This is the day you get to start planning your summer, to figure out which games you will be attending and to check for the obvious highlights.  The 2010 Kansas City Wizards schedule has been released and it is a bit of a mixed bag for those hoping to get some travel in as July features not just a couple, but all four road games that are within reasonable driving distance.

Otherwise we have a little uniqueness about this schedule. With new boys Philadelphia joining MLS we have enough teams to run a balanced schedule. The East/West conferences mean little beyond simply existing:  every team will play every other team twice, once at home and once on the road. The team that finishes the season with most regular season points will have some serious bragging rights at the end of 2010, and nobody can complain about having a hard or easy schedule. Everyone’s is the same.

All listed times are Central, all fixtures are subject to change, make sure you check out the official schedule on mlsnet.

March

03/27 – Saturday D.C. United 7:30pm

The Wizards start off with a bang, with a home tie against DC United on Saturday March 27. This fixture mirrors the final game of last season, where the Wizards played the role of spoiler and gave DC United a bloody nose, eliminating them from the playoffs during a feisty 2-2 draw at Community America Ballpark. On December 28, former Wizard’s head coach Curt Onalfo was hired by DC to fill the same role. Just to muddy the waters further Adam Cristman has also been traded to DC (for a foreign player spot), and while we wish him well we hope he reserves his best for performances for after our opening day.

April

04/10 – Saturday Colorado 7:30pm
04/17 – Saturday at Seattle 2:00pm
04/24 – Saturday LA Galaxy 7:30pm

Most reasonable followers of MLS will not argue with the statement that I am about to make. LA Galaxy were possibly the best team in MLS in 2009. A penalty shoot out against Real Salt Lake made the boys from Utah MLS Cup Winners but the Galaxy finished the regular season with the second best record after a stuttering slow start to the campaign. Once David Beckham had returned from his contentious loan to AC Milan and internal bickering has subsided, Beckham and Landon Donovan gelled well and LA turned into a great team. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon your point of view) the David Beckham roadshow will not be coming to Kansas City in 2010 during the regular season. This year’s loan to AC Milan will not have finished by the time the Galaxy come to Kansas City. Landon Donovan will hopefully be back from his loan to Everton.

May

05/01 – Saturday at Houston 7:30 p.m.
05/05 – Wednesday at D.C. United 6:00 p.m.
05/15 – Saturday Chicago 7:30 p.m.

The Chicago Fire are a real rival. They are not the closest team to Community America Ballpark (or the new stadium site) with the home of FC Dallas being a whopping two miles closer but it’s a Midwestern thing. Chicago just seems closer, and when the Fire play in Kansas City they travel in force and bring what seems like hundreds of fans with them. I have to tip my cap to them and say they out-shouted, out-cheered and out-sung the Kansas City faithful during their visit in 2009.  This cannot happen in 2010.

05/23 – Sunday Columbus 3:00pm
05/29 – Saturday at Real Salt Lake 8:00pm

June

06/05 – Saturday at Toronto FC 3:00pm
06/10 – Thursday Philadelphia 7:00pm

<Insert World Cup here!>

For the first time Major League Soccer is proving its “majorness” by taking a proper break for the World Cup. This means that MLS teams don’t have to trundle on playing with weakened teams in empty stadiums while everybody is watching a soccer broadcast from South Africa. The highlight surely is the World Cup in June, but if you forget that the tournament exists, then a Thursday night game against the Philadelphia Union has to get the nod as the highlight. The Union are 2010′s new boys. By the time June comes around we will know if they are worth the attention they will receive.

06/26 – Saturday New York 7:30pm

July

July is the highlight in that it is odd. If you were planning on driving (or jumping a coach) to a road game, the four closest destinations all fall in July. Bummer if you were planning on going to all four unless you really have some stamina. Maybe we should just be thankful that during the Dog Days of summer there are only two games in Kansas City?

07/03 – Saturday at FC Dallas 7:30pm
07/10 – Saturday Chivas USA 7:30pm
07/14 – Wednesday at Columbus 6:30pm
07/17 – Saturday at Colorado TBD
07/24 – Saturday at Chicago 7:30pm
07/31 – Saturday Toronto FC 7:30pm

August

08/07 – Saturday Real Salt Lake 7:30pm

Well, the MLS Cup winners will be in town for August. Real Salt Lake squeaked into the playoffs last season and wound winning the whole shebang. As poor as the Wizards had been on occasion in 2009, Real Salt Lake only finished seven points above the Wizards. This equates to two wins and a draw difference. Over the span of thirty games this is a fairly slim difference, one which the I hope the Wizards can reverse and then some. Either way beating the Champs should be fun.

08/14 – Saturday at San Jose 9:00pm
08/21 – Saturday New England 7:30pm
08/28 – Saturday at LA Galaxy 9:30pm

September

09/04 – Saturday at Philadelphia 2:30pm
09/11 – Saturday Houston 7:30pm
09/19 – Sunday at Chivas USA 7:00pm
09/25 – Saturday FC Dallas 7:00pm

October

10/02 – Saturday at New York 6:30pm
10/09 – Saturday Seattle 7:30pm

The Seattle Sounders joined MLS with a huge bang. Big crowds, and a great start to 2009. As an organization and fan base they just ooze arrogance and self-entitlement. The Sounders are certainly the new favorite team to simply want to beat in MLS just because they present like they are simply better than everybody else. I’m happy with that, I never thought anybody would steal that mantle from Toronto, but there you go. We had a corker of a game with them at Community America Ballpark at the business end of 2009 – we lost – and I secretly had to applaud Freddie Ljungberg for still being great.

10/16 – Saturday at New England 7:00pm
10/23 – Saturday San Jose 7:30pm