Barça - Manchester United game in the United States
The Major League Soccer organisation and CAA Sports have announced that Barça and Manchester United will meet on July 30th as part of the World Football Challenge Tournament 2011 to be played in Landover, Maryland.
Barcelona (FCB).- The second edition of the World Football Challenge, which will be played between July 14th and August 6th, will feature Barça and Manchester United, as well as the two MLS teams Chicago Fire and New England Revolution, amongst others.
Full fixture list to be released
For the moment the MLS have only announced the dates of three games – those involving Manchester United, who will play Barça on July 30th at the FedEx Field in Landover, after starting out the tournament against New England Revolution at the Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, on July 13th and facing Chicago Fire at Soldier Field in Chicago two days later. The rest of the teams involved, together with the full schedule of games will be announced shortly.
What is the World Challenge?
In 2009, CAA Sports launched the first World Football Challenge, bringing together three of the top teams in the world - Chelsea, AC Milan and Inter Milan, as well as Amèrica, to compete in an event held across various US states. The success of the tournament, which was a sell out, led to another edition being scheduled for this summer, with the addition of a number of US clubs. According to Will Wilson, Executive Vice-president of MLS: “we are excited about having MLS clubs involved in the World Football Challenge this summer and they will take up the challenge of disputing an international tournament”.
THE DETAIL
Previous match up in US
Barça and Manchester United have already faced each other in the States - they met on August 3rd 2003 when the English team won 3-1 with two goals from Forlan and a third from Van Nistelrooy after Kluivert had put Barça ahead early on. That was the first season at the Club for Rijkaard and Ronaldinho and the Dutch manager was still building his team, but there was plenty of interest at the Lincoln Financial Center Stadium in Philadelphia and the game was soon sold out. That was part of Barça’s first summer tour of the States, something which they have now repeated five times in the last eight years.