NEW YORK – Major League Soccer Friday announced the schedule format and conference alignment for its 2022 MLS season.

To best align with the 2022 international soccer calendar, the MLS regular season will begin the earliest in its history, kicking off Saturday, Feb. 26, and run through Decision Day, the regular season finale, Sunday, Oct. 9. Following three consecutive weeks of MLS Cup Playoffs action, MLS Cup will be played Saturday, Nov. 5. That would be more than two weeks prior to the start of the World Cup in Qatar Nov. 21 and more than a week prior to the player release date Nov. 14.

The league also confirmed that Charlotte FC, set to begin play as MLS’s 28th team, will compete in the Eastern Conference, while Nashville SC will move to the Western Conference. That will result in two conferences of 14 teams each.

All teams will play a 34-game regular season – 17 home games, 17 away games – facing each of their conference opponents two times and playing eight non-conference opponents once.

The MLS regular season schedule will consist of all weekend matches with the exception of five, or fewer, midweek matches – targeting one each in May, June and July, and two in August. The midweek match dates for each team will not be scheduled in consecutive weeks.

In observance of the 2022 FIFA calendar, MLS will seek to avoid scheduling matches during the FIFA international windows in March, June or September. Only at a team’s request will MLS consider scheduling a match during the March window, or during the second weekend of the June double window. Teams may not request to play matches during the September window, at the final stretch of the regular season.

The full MLS regular season schedule will be announced later this year.

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.