MLS Scheduling More Confusing Than Lost

When you’re the MLS, you try to make everyone happy because that means sponsors and fans keep you afloat. But what happens when you have too many moving parts and promises to keep making a simple thing like scheduling your next season too difficult to manage?
Welcome to 2008, where everything from David Beckham to the Olympics to Chelsea playing the Chicago Fire have made a mess of the league trying to display its roster of (international) superstars.

[H]ere’s a short list of the complicating factors as MLS deciders assign matches to 14 teams in ‘08, a process done in stages with significant adjustments proceeding every step: SuperLiga’s sophomore edition; the new CONCACAF Champions League to be introduced later this summer; the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup; the 2008 Olympics and, lest we forget, the pressurized complexities of the Beckham factor.

The full 2008 schedule should be out in early February, league officials say. They’ll never make everybody happy, but they do have a target in that regard. If they can make everybody involved 75-80 percent happy, then it’s “mission accomplished.”

Yeah, we’d steer clear of that phrase, seeing as it didn’t go too well for the last guy who used it in reference to a campaign.
MLS schedule rife with challenges [ESPNsoccernet]
Image [The Offiside Rules]