NASL Fall 2015

NASL Announces 2015 Fall Season

20-game schedule kicks off on Fourth of July

The North American Soccer League (NASL) schedule for the 2015 Fall Season will kick off on Saturday, July 4.

Each of the 11 NASL clubs will play a 20-game Fall Season schedule, playing each opponent once at home and once away. The winner of the Fall Season, which will end on Sunday, November 1, will earn one of the top two seeds in The Championship, the league’s four-team postseason tournament.

The 2015 Fall Season will kick off on the Fourth of July, one of the country’s most celebrated holidays, in two American cities. The Tampa Bay Rowdies and Carolina RailHawks will host Fourth of July games against the Atlanta Silverbacks and Minnesota United FC respectively.

“Opening the Fall Season at home on Fourth of July will be very special for both our club and our fans,” said Rowdies head coach Thomas Rongen. “The split-season format has a proven track record where every game matters – whether it’s the first or last week of the season.”

Jacksonville Armada FC will open the Fall Season with their first ever road trip north of the border, visiting Ottawa Fury FC at TD Place. Also included in the opening-weekend matchups is a pair of Sunday games. The New York Cosmos host Indy Eleven, while FC Edmonton welcomes the San Antonio Scorpions, the league’s defending champions.

“I can’t wait for the start of the 2015 Fall Season, opening with Fourth of July fireworks and ending with a bang in early November,” said NASL Commissioner Bill Peterson. “The last two fall seasons have gone down to the wire, and I suspect it won’t be any different in 2015.”

The crowning of last year’s Fall Season Champion went down to the final seconds. Defender Adrian Cann scored a stoppage-time winner to give the Scorpions a 1-0 win over the New York Cosmos and the Fall Season Championship in dramatic fashion.

The Scorpions would then go on to beat the Cosmos in The Championship Semifinals the following week before raising the Soccer Bowl Trophy after topping the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the 2014 title game. The Cosmos will have to wait for their attempt at revenge until late in the Fall Season when they visit the Scorpions at Toyota Field on October 24.

“It’s a competitive schedule that reflects the strength of the league,” said Scorpions head coach Alen Marcina. “It includes some marquee matchups in the final weeks, and hopefully those matches will have playoff implications because that creates a lot of excitement for our fans.”

Only one of the four postseason spots will be spoken for going into the Fall Season, giving teams a great chance to generate momentum and make a push for a spot in The Championship.

“The balanced schedule in the Fall Season makes for a great competition for our fans,” Peterson said. “They’ll have a chance to see every team in the League at their home stadium.”

The league will operate under the exact same competition format as last year, with the Spring Season Champion and Fall Season Champion accounting for the top two seeds in the postseason. For the teams that did not capture either the Spring or Fall title, the remaining two postseason spots will go to the sides that accumulated the most combined points over the course of the Spring and Fall Seasons.

Below is the full 2015 Fall Season schedule: