2025 Hearts Of Pine Schedule Drop: Bobby Murphy Discusses Inaugural Campaign
With a full technical staff, a training camp scheduled, and about 9 agreement deals in place with players. Murphy gives his thoughts on the year to come.
USL League One issued the 2025 schedule today and Portland Hearts of Pine will have 15 matches home and away for the USL League One season and an additional four Jäegermeister Cup matches split between home and away.
Portland opens its season against FC Naples on March 29 in Florida. The Hearts of Pines’ first home match is on May 4 against One Knoxville.
The Jäegermeister Cup draw sees the Hearts travel away to Hartford Athletic and Rhode Island FC. The home matches will be Detroit City FC and Pittsburgh River Hounds SC. All four are Championship sides, three of which made the playoffs with Rhode Island making it to the Final.
“We might as well try and get out the group and then take our chances from there,” head coach Bobby Murphy told The Blazing Musket. “That's the beauty of Cup games. You can go in and turn somebody over and you get a point here and a point there and next thing, you know, you control your own destiny and have a chance to advance. It's really not a throwaway competition for us. We're going to put our best foot forward and use it for what it's for, to try and win.”
Murphy also stated he has a full technical staff and once the club and the league square away the details those hires’ names would be made public. He also revealed that training camp is nearly a month away.
“We’re going to start around the 20th of January and we'll have access to Portland Sports Complex or Fitzpatrick depending on the weather,” he said. “Obviously there'll be days we'll need to be inside but if we can get outside, we would prefer that. I think we've got a couple trips planned that will announce we're going to Orlando for one break to get out and get the sun and then we're working on a second shorter trip later in preseason. So yeah, that's that's where we'll be otherwise we'll be based here. So we have preseason games against Rev2, Rhode Island, Hartford and then a couple games in Florida as well. So we'll be up and ready.”
In addition, Murphy stated that Portland will play preseason matches against Revs II, Rhode Island, and Hartford in the preseason.
“The dates are set and we will be announcing those shortly,” the head coach said. They are evenly spread throughout preseason.”
When asked about the fan availability to the preseason matches, Coach conceded there would be more to come from the club on that. Training grounds and amenities differ depending on location, and it’s hard to provide a clear answer at this time.
With the first match just 100 days away, Murphy is focused on making sure that his squad is prepared for USL League 1 play and to make a positive first impression.
“It doesn't matter how many preseason games you have when it goes for real, things change a little bit,” the head coach said, “Pulses are raised and adrenaline can take over for a minute so I think it's trying to prepare them as best you can for that because a rush of adrenaline only hurts you down the road. But then, I think just making sure they know you get one chance to make a first impression so let's make sure we enjoy it and let's make sure we represent ourselves well.”