By RYAN TOLMICH
Some of the world’s biggest teams are bound for America this summer, and now the specific dates and locations of their appearances have been revealed.
The organizers of the International Champions Cup announced the dates and cities of the tournament’s 18 games this summer, 14 of which will take place in the United States. Canada, England, Mexico and Italy will each also house one contest.
Teams set to participate include the LA Galaxy, San Jose Earthquakes, New York Red Bulls, Chelsea, Manchester United, Paris-Saint Germain, Barcelona, Fiorentina, Porto and Club America.
The tournament is set to kickoff on July 11 with the LA Galaxy taking on Club America at StubHub Center and the U.S. schedule will conclude on July 29 with a matchup between Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
Other cities set to host contests are San Jose, Seattle, Harrison, Hartford, Charlotte, and Washington D.C., while Toronto, London, Florence and Mexico City will make up the tournament’s international cities.
A matchup between Manchester United and the San Jose Earthquakes will have its date and location determined later.
Here’s a closer look at the schedule for this summer’s International Champions Cup
July 11 – LA Galaxy vs. Club America – StubHub Center
July 14 – San Jose Earthquakes vs. Club America – Avaya Stadium
July 17 – Club America vs. Manchester United – CenturyLink Field
July 18 – Paris Saint-Germain vs. Porto – BMO Field
July 21 – LA Galaxy vs. Barcelona – Rose Bowl
July 21 – Fiorentina vs. Paris Saint-Germain – Red Bull Arena
July 22 – Chelsea vs. New York Red Bulls – Red Bull Arena
July 24 – Fiorentina vs. Porto – Rentschler Field
July 25 – Manchester United vs. Barcelona – Levi’s Stadium
July 25 – Chelsea vs. Paris-Saint Germain – Bank of America Stadium
July 26 – FC Porto vs. New York Red Bulls – Red Bull Arena
July 28 – Barcelona vs. Chelsea – FedEx Field
July 28 – Club America vs. Porto – Azteca Stadium
July 29 – Manchester United vs. Paris Saint-Germain – Soldier Field
August 2 – Fiorentina vs. Barcelona – Artemio Franchi
August 5 – Chelsea vs. Fiorentina – Stamford Bridge
TBD – Manchester United vs. San Jose Earthquakes – TBD
What do you think of the ICC matchups? Which games are you expecting to attend?
Share your thoughts below.
I wonder if star players will play in Big matches? like MNAU vs BARCA
cause they are prone to injury in such exhibition match.. If not that would be very disappointing for someone who is spending 200-300$ for seat!
A Soccer Groopie/fool and his money will soon be parted.
The most interesting part would be if MLS teams actually took these games seriously and tried to compete with the B teams of these foreign teams. But if I know the Arenas and Schmids of the league they will be afraid to actually compete and not field their best team and use that as an excuse for getting crushed.
pablito, please stop. I am sorry we are so inferior. We will try harder. Please don’t rip on our league any more. We won’t be afraid anymore!
They also don’t want to compete because it’s a meaningless exhibition and they have real games to worry about.
The Galaxy vs America game at Stub Hub is the most enticing for me. Definitely a game both teams will want to win due to the MLS/LigaMEX, USA/Mexico rivalry. I assume this is the game that will be played with the most passion and taken the most seriously of all the games (besides the MLS vs MLS league games that are also being used for tournament scoring).
It’s the biggest club team from Mexico vs the biggest club team from the USA. It’s being played at Stub Hub so its a “home” game for the Galaxy in their own stadium, but we all know how many Mexicans and club America fans there are in Los Angeles. I assume the stadium will be sold-out and be 50/50 as far as fan support from each team.
Unfortunately the Galaxy will probably be without O. Gonzalez and G. Zardes due to the Gold Cup. America will be missing players also.
I went to this cup last summer to see Real Madrid v Inter Milan @ UC Berkeley. Let’s be realistic about which players actual play in this tourney. It’s the second and third string players with one or two first stringers sprinkled in to convince the ticket holder they saw a big name player. Real Madrid had Bale and Isco. This game cost about $100 per ticket to sit behind the corner flag. I’d rather watch from my couch.
Barca v ManU at Levis is tempting but I think I’ll be disappointed by which players show up to play.
Teams generally aren’t going to be putting out all their starters for these pre season matches, but last year was a world cup year and a lot of players came to their clubs late if they were involved with their national teams in the tournament. This time around more players are likely to be available (especially the European and African players who, as far as I know, don’t have any major tournaments to recover from – South American players may be missing due giving them a break after Copa America). More players will probably be with the teams this time around, but we’ll see who actually sees the field.
Wales didn’t make the World Cup so Bale was available. Isco wasn’t chosen to play for Spain.
That’s the exact reason I’m hesitating to buy a ticket for MANU vs BARCA….. :/
Call it a “cup” or whatever you like, but it’s still a bunch of pre-season scrimmages for the foriegn clubs and a money grab by all concerned. I’ll never understand why people will pay huge bucks to see their heroes in meaningless exhibitions, or why MLS and its clubs continue to bow at the alter of money when these games eviscerate their real schedules.
*altar*
MLS teams play in these games because they make a lot of money from them. I also don’t think it impacts them much. Most of the time they play backups and scrubs and even if some regulars play it doesn’t have the intensity of a real game.
Unless they pull guys up from reserve teams, they have to pay at least some starters. And these games just mean that you have to squeeze real games that count into fewer dates. As for the money, if it translates into better MLS players via salaries, DPs, etc., then fine — but I doubt it.
The “money grab” criticism is silly. All entertainment is a money grab. I also don’t buy into the “meaningless exhibition” criticism. Why does anyone go to a pre-season NFL game? Or the Grapefruit/Cactus League games? Or any All-Star game, for that matter, which nominally puts famous players out there for a while to sort of play a real game. Why do people go see a show multiple times, or watch a movie over and over again? Entertainment is emotional, not rational. When Messi lines up for a free kick in a “meaningless” game, no one watching is thinking “it doesn’t matter what happens.” Everyone wants to see him score so they can enjoy a moment of brilliance.
The question of whether people will come to the games is separate from the question of whether it’s good for the league. People would surely go to see a bunch of exhibitions between top Eyropean clubs in, say, October or April, but they would never do that because it would play havoc with their real schedules. MLS should have enough self-respect to refuse to be well-paid sparring partners when they have real games to play.
Big European teams don’t often schedule friendlies during their “real schedules” because those schedules are already jam packed with League, Cup and European games mid-week and on the weekend. MLS doesn’t have that issue. There are fewer mid-week games, and in the summer there are no other MLS-involved competitions to worry about. Is it good for MLS to hold these games? I think on balance the answer is yes. The are a solid revenue source, they expose the league overseas, they provide information to potential DPs, and they keep MLS players sharp against good competition. Remember, MLS players do not nearly play the number of games that good European-based players play.
You think it’s good for MLS to be part of this? Really, tell me what the Columbus Crew and their fans get out of this? Houston? Colorado? Other than the already rich LA and NY franchises, and a bone for San Jose, how else does MLS benefit? It benefits a couple of teams. Period.
Chance of me watching these is almost zero, closest one to me is 1,500 miles awway.
Gold Cup goes July 8-25 anyway. Much more interesting.
Why does this tournament” has to be mutually exclusive with the Gold Cup? I can take my kids watch Messi, Neymar and Suarez live and still catch the Gold Cup games.
And you’re exactly the fan they are looking for. Drop 2 or 3 hundred bucks to watch those three guys for a total of 30 minutes. The PT Barnum of US Soccer – Charlie Stillitano, thanks you.
That’s cool, as long as one can afford it, plus these tickets are free to MLS season ticket holders at the clubs that host as part their season subscription. In any event, some players are worth the price of admission, even if it is only 30 minutes. 🙂
Free to season ticket holders of the teams? Oh boy! So you mean LA, again, RBNY, again, and this years lucky winners of the “we’ll pretend we care about MLS so here’s a game for….” San Jose! The other 17 clubs, and their fans, get nothing. As PT Barnum said – there’s a sucker born every minute.
You want to give your children something they will never forget – keep your money away from this horrible cash grab for a few summers and save it to take them to Barcelona. They’ll learn about a new culture and see these great players in a real match.
Eurosnob, I’m not so sure those players will be available, they are playing copa america.
Good point Frank, I forgot about Copa America.
Two of the three games at RBA are free to season ticket holders but I’m selling mine because I couldn’t care less about watching these games. I’ll probably buy tickets to the Chelsea-RBNY game too and sell those at an enormous markup to some Chelsea fanboy from NYC who’s been a Chelsea fan since, er, well since they started winning the Premier League on a regular basis.
3 games for $60 at RBA I could do worse
Thank you slowleftarm for restoring my faith in the existance of real soccer fans.
Have they put out a price schedule yet? I am not above being a scalper for the casual fans. The promoters aren’t the only ones willing to take money for nothing.
Schedule is out – scalp away!
Only if MLS had the summer off 🙂 it could be called the MLS summer invitational, with many more mls teams hosting.
The sad part about this cup, is that MLS team fans will be forgotten by the big name clubs.
Club America fans are everywhere in the US and they could easily own a team in MLS and be the biggest team in MLS, that’s how sad it is.
Same thing with Barcelona and ManU.
Chivas has fans everywhere and owning a team here in the States worked out pretty well for them too.
Club America would have done it right. They have the brains and the money and they are owned by televisa. Televisa is the ABC of Mexico and they are wanna be espn with their sports.
Wasup el paso.
Why is the fact that Club America, Barcelona, and Man U are bigger than any MLS club sad?
You have literally zero evidence of this claim. None.
Are NYCFC the biggest team in MLS because they are a owned by a the City Football Group? Hardly. Chivas was another example.
Know who the biggest revenue team in US Soccer is? Seattle. After them? LA Galaxy. Then Portland. The list goes on like this. You know what they have in common? ZERO connection to foreign clubs. There is quite literally nothing whatsoever to support this claim of yours that American fans will just start cottoning on to a team with a foreign brand.
At the moment, there is far more evidence that cross-branding doesn’t work than anything to suggest it does.
These European teams don’t need to play american teams at all. They want to play in big stadiums where they get lots of ticket revenue – or in the glamour cities of New York or LA. Sure, lets pretend Charlie Stillitano cares about MLS so he will throw a one game bone to another MLS team – this year’s winner, San Jose! Maybe next year it will be Portland or Seattle – but it’s never gonna be Columbus or Colorado or half a dozen others.
Won’t these dates conflict with the GC?