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Austin to host MLS All-Star game in 2025 as Texas capital continues to grow as a soccer market

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Soccer News (AP)

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Austin FC's Q2 Stadium will host the 2025 Major League Soccer All-Star match, Commissioner Don Garber announced Wednesday, putting the young club in line to stage one of the league's premier annual events.

The state-of-the-art 20,738-seat stadium opened in 2021, the first year of play for the franchise. The club has hosted U.S. women's and men's national team matches for World Cup qualifying, pre-Olympic warmup matches, and Gold Cup matches. It will also host two group matches during the Copa America in July.

Austin FC has sold out 60 consecutive matches, the longest current streak in MLS.

"This city has embraced this team as we always hoped it would, and in many ways expected it would. This is a way to say 'Thank you,' to their fans," Garber said at an event staged at Antone's, a concert hall in the city's live music entertainment district. "This city has shown the rest of the world that MLS can thrive and succeed in brand new markets that didn't have soccer history."

MLS was the first major professional sports league to put a franchise in the Texas capital.

The exact date of the match and the opponent for the MLS all-stars team will be announced at a later date. The league stages a week of events around the all-star match, including an all-star skills challenge, an all-star game for its development league, and concerts.

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"This is one of the original visions of the club when Austin FC was formalized, to bring events to Austin," said Andy Loughnane, the president of Austin FC. "If you're a new club, or even in a new stadium, you have a really good opportunity to host the all-star game, but you have to earn it on merit."

Columbus, Ohio, will host for the 2024 all-star events with the MLS All-Stars facing a group of all-stars from Mexico's LIGA MX on July 24.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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