Here’s what the USL Championship’s 2021 division alignment might look like

An attempt to see how the divisions would shake out.

Courtesy of Phoenix Rising FC.

The USL announced last week the Championship’s alignment for the scheduled 2021 season is to be four divisions.

It’s a departure from 2020’s remix plan of four or five-team groups, which was a solid idea for sheer expediency purposes but led to teams facing the same opponents again and again and admittedly, some very disparate groups.

So, what will the four groups look like? We’ll have to see how the league doles out the assignments, but here’s my attempt at figuring out how the four groups will be divided up. Obviously it’s just a guess at this point:

Division 1:

Division 2:

Division 3:

Division 4:

With the current makeup of the league at 31 teams, these divisions are uneven, with three holding eight teams and the other seven. There have been rumblings that more teams will drop out of the division or cease operations altogether, which will obviously alter divisions accordingly if that happens.

You’ll notice that I put the Oklahoma teams in a division with Eastern Conference teams. I couldn’t figure out a way to logically keep the regional rivalries together and keep them in the West, and I would expect that Tulsa and OKC will want to be able to play each other. Given the middle-of-the-countryishness of the rest of that division, aside from the two Florida teams, I think you can make a case it works as well as the old days when California and Oklahoma teams played each other.

By putting Sacramento Republic in a group of largely West Coast teams — logically — the actual division turns out to be pretty stacked. While Reno 1868 have gone out of business, there are only two MLS2 teams in my mooted division and one of them, LA Galaxy II, is coming off a season in the playoffs and beat Sac Republic last year. We don’t know how the newcomers Oakland Roots will perform, but they’ll likely become new rivals for Sacramento.

So there you have it. What do you make of my divisions? How would you tinker? Leave a comment below.

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Comments

Whereas ideally the league would probably like to keep Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico together,

there would be no way to balance the divisions in a four division format, other than illogically sending teams from Utah and Colorado east instead.
So you probably have that one right.

The only other thing I could see happening, however, would be to make up a division in the south (Birmingham, AtlII, Miami, Tampa, Charleston, Charlotte, with probably Tulsa and OKC). That would leave the midwesty teams, including some "southern" clubs, with the northeast ( Louisville, KCII, Memphis, Indy, Pittsburgh, Loudon, Hartford, RBII).

The far west seems pretty straightforward. It’s imperfect, but maybe the most geographically functional, given that the league remains with these exact teams and four divisions.

By left hand on 01.25.21 8:52am

USL

So each team would only play teams in their division? That makes Division A and Division B unbalanced. Sacramento, Phoenix and LA Galaxy 2 are all play-off teams, and Loyal probably should have qualified for the play-offs. Cashman Field is one of the most difficult places to play in the league and the Roots could have a good first season. Defiance are the only team that don’t really contest for play-off spots but they have their days. I agree they would have to make a West-Coast division, and there is no way around creating a pretty uneven group.

By LasVegasLights33 on 01.25.21 9:59am

May be no way around it.

But really, any league with divisions has some issues like that. Washington making the playoffs in the NFL would qualify as one example.
Also, I really think you will see something similar to the ‘Pacific’ division around the country with USL. Two or three really strong teams in each of the divisions.

By left hand on 01.25.21 2:38pm

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