Fitness and finance jostle for spotlight

– Real Madrid and Barcelona square off in a rare overseas Clasico, while Manchester United and Manchester City meet for the first time outside Britain as the world’s leading clubs strive to optimise their pre-season preparations.

Pre-season tours have grown significantly in importance over the past decade as teams promote their brand visibility, while simultaneously striving to ensure players are ready to hit the ground running.

Asia, Australia and the United States are popular destinations for the top clubs, but there is more to these trips than simply pitching up and kicking a ball.

AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund kick off the International Champions Cup (ICC) in Guangzhou, China, on Tuesday, the first of 19 matches in a pre-season tournament featuring several of Europe’s top clubs spread across three countries. Bayern Munich then meet Arsenal in Shanghai before the Gunners take on Premier League champions Chelsea in Beijing.

Chelsea, Bayern and Inter Milan also visit Singapore, but the bulk of the fixtures take place Stateside where Jose Mourinho’s United play Pep Guardiola’s City next Thursday in Houston, with European champions Real meeting Barcelona in Miami on July 29 – the first Clasico held outside Spain since 1982 in Venezuela.

Charlie Stillitano, chairman of Relevent Sports which oversees the ICC, believes the appeal of the US is its “perfect marriage of commercialism and football”.

“It was always thought that pre-seasons should be playing against easy teams, don’t stress the players, they will only come to America for really what they said was marketing, but they weren’t really doing much, except just coming. Now everything has changed. Now the players are serious, the commercial departments are serious.”

Stillitano credits Mourinho for changing the way clubs approach their pre-season plans.

“Alex Ferguson said in his book that he learned a lot from Jose, because Jose won the Premier League two years in a row and attributed the two titles in a row to playing big teams in pre-seasons and being ready,” he explained.

Tom Glick, chief commercial officer at City Football Group, said: “There are few better ways to enhance awareness and exposure of our club in particular markets than having our players on the ground, training, playing and meeting fans.” – AFP