On a warm Thursday evening last June, Atlanta United faced the Charleston Battery in a U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal behind closed doors in Kennesaw, Ga. The game had been scheduled to take place in Charleston two days earlier, but heavy rain made the field unplayable, and the match was moved.



Ordinarily, moving the game from Charleston to a venue 20 minutes from downtown Atlanta would have given a huge advantage to the MLS side. However, for the rescheduled game, U.S. Soccer determined that securing staff and security personnel would not be possible on such a short turnaround. And so Atlanta United ended up playing a match that could foreshadow a new normal if Major League Soccer chooses to return with spectatorless contests in 2020.



At this point, one can only speculate about whether or not MLS will resume play this season. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the league into a holding pattern as teams prepare for a myriad of possibilities. Commissioner Don Garber told...