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Social isolation is slowly coming to an end with the country re-opening and that means sports is also crawling back into our lives. This includes the Philadelphia Union and MLS as a league. The soccer league will restart its 25th season with a World Cup-style tournament taking place in Orlando, Florida. The 26 teams will be playing for regular season points in the three group stage matches and a spot in the Concacaf Champions League.
HOW TO WATCH
A live tournament draw will take place this afternoon to seed the six groups for the MLS is Back tournament. You can watch the 3:30 p.m. draw live on PhiladelphiaUnion.com. It is also being streamed at MLSsoccer.com and the league’s social media accounts.
Format
As mentioned previously already, the tournament is fashioned off the World Cup. The 26 teams will be split into six groups. Three for the Eastern Conference, and Nashville FC who started the season initially in the Western Conference. The Western Conference will be slotted in Groups B, D, F.
Orlando City SC has the top seed since they are the “host city” and are slotted in A1, which is the lone group with six teams. The remaining five top seeds — Atlanta United, Toronto FC, LAFC, Seattle Sounders and Real Salt Lake — will then be drawn to take the top seed of the remaining five groups.
Once they are slotted, the remaining 20 clubs will be drawn by a representative from the seeded clubs by randomly picking a number from their conference. Each number relates to a ball containing the name of the unseeded club that will join the seeded club’s group.
The Union will be guaranteed to play Atlanta United or Toronto FC if they are drawn into their group but would only play three of the other five teams if they are drawn into Orlando City’s group.