Friendly

Benfica vs. Juventus wasn’t exactly one of the more glamorous matchups brought to us by the International Champions Cup. But it brought us the two best goals of the preseason tournament, namely the Luca Clemenza goal vs Benfica on Saturday at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey. 

The match was scoreless after an hour. The deadlock was broken in the 65th minute by Benfica’s 22-year-old Spaniard Alejandro Grimaldo, who smashed a free kick that dipped perfectly into the back of the net.

Arsenal beat Paris Saint-Germain 5-1. That was the least interesting thing about the Arsenal vs PSG match.

The Gunners are in the midst of their first preseason without Arsene Wenger since before the 1996 season. With Unai Emery coaching the club now, it’s anyone’s guess as to how Arsenal fares in the upcoming Premier League season. Do they plummet precipitously as Manchester United did when David Moyes took over for Alex Ferguson? Do they stay in place as the sixth-best team in England? Do they return to the top like Chelsea whenever Roman Abramovich hires a new manager?

The USWNT defeated Japan 4-2 to begin Tournament of Nations play (essentially the warmup for October’s World Cup qualifying event) with Alex Morgan registering a hat-trick inside 56 minutes and The Best FIFA Women’s Player finalist Megan Rapinoe adding the fourth in the 66th.   

Last night, some kid named Christian Pulisic decided what better time to light things up than back at home in the U.S. of A. against the Champions League runners-up/the team that has a growing interest in him. 

Emerson Hyndman left Texas at the age of 15 to join the Fulham youth academy in 2011, but the 22-year-old has yet to really break through with a first team in Britain, having also appeared for Rangers and his current club Bournemouth. But this Hyndman goal vs Levante in a preseason friendly makes a great case for the American to be included in the upcoming Premier League season. 

Marco Silva’s first match in charge of Everton proved to be quite difficult for the scoreboard operator. The Toffees destroyed Austrian minnow ATV Irdning 22-0 to open the 2018 Everton preseason campaign on Saturday in Austria.

You read that right: 22-0.

Who needs Wayne Rooney?

Unai Emery made his debut on the Arsenal bench as the Gunners routed Boreham Wood 8-0 on Saturday at Meadow Park in London. The match kicked off at the same time as the England-Belgium World Cup third-place match, but the Emery Arsenal debut provided far more action than the Three Lions in Russia. 

The World Cup has less than two weeks left, and I’m just about ready to curl up in a ball and cry in the corner for the next four years until Qatar 2022 rolls around. But alas, noone can stay away from the sport for that long. After the World Cup ends (sad, I know), the attention then becomes on the club scene again, particularly the International Champions Cup schedule. 

European teams travel all over the globe for some preseason training camps and friendlies. The biggest set of friendlies, however, often happens in the United States.