Barça - Manchester United game in the United States

Barcelona (FCB).- The second edition of the World Football Challenge, which will be played between July 14^th and August 6^th, 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 30^th at the FedEx Field in Landover, after starting out the tournament against New England Revolution at the Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, on July 13^th 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 3^rd 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.