Minnesota United will open its first season in Major League Soccer at Portland on Friday, March 3. That 8:30 p.m. match also will be the league's first of the 2017 season.

United Sporting Director Manny Lagos, in a news release, called Portland "one of the best places in the world to go out to play a pro soccer game. It's going to be exciting for the club, exciting for our guys and it will be a really fun day for the state of Minnesota."

The Loons' home opener at TCF Bank Stadium will be Sunday, March 12, against Atlanta, also an expansion team, at 4 p.m. Both games are expected to be nationally televised.

"To host at home against the other expansion team is always going to be a good story line," Lagos said. "There's going to be a connection that we're always going to have with them because of the timing of our expansion into MLS."

The club's complete 34-game, regular-season schedule will be announced in January before the SuperDraft.

Each of the 22 MLS teams will play 17 games at home and 17 on the road. Teams will face each of their 10 conference opponents twice, once at home, once away. The regular season will end in October.

United, which holds the first pick in the SuperDraft of college players Jan. 13, will open training camp Jan. 23 in Arizona. It has one announced preseason match so far in Arizona, against New England Revolution on Jan. 31 in Casa Grande.

The team expects to shift its training in early February to Portland, where it will play three games in a round-robin tournament that it played in last year.

Matches are set against Vancouver on Feb. 9, Portland on Feb. 12 and Real Salt Lake on Feb. 15.

Staff reports