With Monday’s announcement of the dates of 2015-16 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League (SCCL) Group Stage matches, Sounders FC learned it would have a very unique and challenging schedule to play in August and September.
The club’s SCCL fixtures come during a part of the season when Seattle has several key battles with Western Conference opponents in MLS action. The Rave Green will face Vancouver Whitecaps FC – one of its Group F foes – twice in a row on two different occasions, both in five-day spans.
READ: Group stage dates announced for 2015-2016 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League
Perhaps the most difficult portion of the schedule will be late in August, when Sounders FC plays five games in a 15-day stretch that concludes with an MLS match against archrival Portland.
Vancouver hosts the Rave Green on August 5 for Seattle’s first game of the Group Stage. It will be the first time Sounders FC faces a league opponent in the CCL, as Group F is the only one of the eight groups in which two MLS teams were drawn together.
Just four days after that matchup with the Whitecaps, Seattle will play at reigning MLS Cup champion LA Galaxy on August 9. Sounders FC then faces Honduran side C.D. Olimpia – its second Group F foe – at CenturyLink Field on August 19 and on the road August 26 during its stretch of five games in 15 days.
The final Group Stage match for the Rave Green is at home against Vancouver on September 23, a contest that comes in the middle of a three-match road swing in MLS play featuring games against Western Conference foes that, as of now, are all in the playoff hunt.
It will surely be a difficult two months for Sigi Schmid’s team, but the Sounders could be fully healthy by the time August comes around. And although they were eliminated from the U.S. Open Cup, the Rave Green still has two major goals to accomplish by the end of this season: capturing its first MLS Cup and reaching the Knockout Stage of the CCL, which begins in the spring of 2016.
