Toronto FC draw Montreal, New England and D.C. in MLS is Back Tournament

Toronto FC has learned its next three regular-season opponents.

The league announced in a live draw today that Toronto FC would be the top seed in Group C at the MLS is Back Tournament. They subsequently drew the Montreal Impact, New England Revolution and D.C. United.

The tournament group stage is set to begin on July 8 at Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Given the location, the tournament will kick off with a derby meeting between Orlando City and Inter Miami. All of the group stage games in this competition will count towards the MLS regular season, adding to the two games that had already been played pre-pandemic.

Following the group stage, the top two teams in each group and four wildcard sides will make up the round of 16. A single game knockout stage will then be played until the final on August 11.

The prize for winning the tournament is $1 million, but the biggest carrot is likely the Concacaf Champions League spot that will be awarded to the tournament winner. In a rare move for MLS, this is still the case if the winning team is Canadian. For more information on the tournament structure, read Michael Singh’s explainer from earlier today.

Here is the full Eastern Conference draw. As aforementioned both Florida teams will be in Group A, while Eastern Conference finalists Atlanta headline what could be a very difficult Group E with the Red Bulls and Crew.

Out west, the LA derby in Group F jumps out for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, the defending MLS Cup Champions, the Seattle Sounders will be joined by the Vancouver Whitecaps.

The full schedule for this tournament will be announced in the coming days. Games are currently slated to be played a 9 a.m., 8 p.m., and 10:30 p.m. Eastern with the majority of the matches being played in the evening.