The craziest pre-season friendlies of Summer 2025 The off-season for European leagues is increasingly unpredictable

A few scrolls on Flashscore or through the schedules of Europe’s top clubs are enough to realize that summer friendlies aren’t what they used to be. If up until fifteen years ago, July and August friendlies were little more than a warm-up between preseason training and the start of the league, today they are also – if not mainly – commercial showcases. Opportunities to expand brand reach and presence in foreign markets, with the drastic change in habits this entails, often at the expense of what coaches and staff hold dear. The gradual increase in opponent difficulty, matches against teams from similar contexts, the geographical and climatic proximity of away games: all have taken a back seat on the altar of revenue and marketing. And so we now have a new universe of challenges and intercontinental tours, derbies played thousands of kilometers from home, mini-tournaments and exhibitions that border on the absurd. Ready?

David vs Goliath

We’ve seen quite a few questionable matches in recent weeks, though to be fair, the atmosphere was already quite surreal in the early days of the Club World Cup when Bayern Munich thrashed New Zealand’s semi-professional side Auckland City with an embarrassing (for whom?) 10–0. It wasn’t the scoreline itself that was surprising—after all, tennis-like results are common at this time of year—but the context: an impossible and at the same time improbable matchup, FIFA-branded and globally televised, with the double manita as a fitting finale. Technically, however, it was official football.

In the realm of friendlies, super one-sided matches aren’t lacking, but many still seem to make some sense to the public. For example, those between clubs owned by the same group, like Palermo vs Manchester City, scheduled for August 9th for the Anglo-Palermitan Trophy. Intra-club matches between the first team and youth squads, a common practice at Atalanta’s Zingonia base, are another example; or games against local selections in training camp areas, such as the Valle D’Aosta Representative, which will spar with Pisa and Palermo. Then there’s Bayern Munich, who since 2018 have played four friendlies against amateur side Rottach-Egern, based where their summer camp is held, with a combined score of 84–3. However, it was confirmed a few weeks ago that the third Berlusconi Trophy match between AC Milan and Monza would not go ahead, as Fininvest had sold the Brianza club to the US fund Beckett Layne Ventures

But there are also other exhibition matches, scattered between July and August, that cross into the surreal. Clashes between marginal European clubs and national teams from the Persian Gulf, all-star Eastern squads taking on Premier League sides, Bundesliga teams flying to South America for training, African and Southeast Asian clubs on an exhausting tour across Europe. And if in 2021 Jürgen Klopp asked "what happened to the good old essential summer prep without tournaments?", the answer has long been buried in time.

History, paradoxes, and absurdities

One of this summer’s highlights is scheduled for August 14th at Viola Park, where Fiorentina will host the Japan University FA, a selection of Japanese student players on a European tour during their academic break. For the Tuscan club, just back from England, where they’ll face Manchester United at Old Trafford on August 9th, it’ll be a “low-intensity tune-up test”, as explained by sporting director Daniele Pradè. For spectators, it’ll be 90 fairly baffling minutes.

While the Florence match will pit professionals against hopefuls, the game played in Slovenia on July 16th pushes the paradox even further. NK Istra 1961, sixth in last season’s HNL (Croatian top flight), faced the Bahrain national team. Why? According to Qatari media, coach Helio Sousa requested a European test before Asian qualifiers, while the Balkan club clearly seized the opportunity for some extra income in the low season. The same logic applies to the upcoming match on July 23rd, when Metalist 1925 Kharkiv, newly promoted to Ukraine’s top division, will face Qatar, coached by Julen Lopetegui, in Austria during their Gulf Cup prep. Switching continents brings us to Washington, where on August 2nd the Ethiopian national team will play D.C. United. The event was created by Eyob “Joe” Mamo, an Addis Ababa entrepreneur and co-owner of the U.S. club, as a legacy match honoring the largest Ethiopian diaspora outside Africa: over half of the 370,000 U.S. residents live in the District-Maryland-Virginia area.

Another historically loaded friendly took place on July 5th in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, between local side Glenavon FC (NIFL Premiership) and Germany’s FC Erzgebirge Aue (now in 3. Liga). The match was originally scheduled in the 1960/61 European Cup round of 16, but was canceled due to the Cold War, when East German authorities banned travel to Ulster and UEFA awarded a forfeit victory. Sixty-five years later, the two clubs finally met, exchanging original pennants recovered from their archives.

Absurd tours and where to find them

The geography of summer tours used to be simple: Italy’s clubs chose Alto Adige or Val D’Aosta for the cool air, while teams chasing new fanbases went to the U.S. or China. Today, the itinerary is far less linear. In 2025, the most eye-catching trip belongs to Barcelona, returning to Japan and South Korea after six years for the Blaugrana Tour – Asia Edition. It kicks off in Kobe on July 27th against Andrés Iniesta’s Vissel, then moves to Seoul for their first match in South Korea since 2010, and wraps up on August 4th in Daegu: a 10-day trip to strengthen ties with two vast markets where the Catalans boast five million fans and six official academies. Upon returning, they’ll host Como (Cesc Fàbregas’s team) in the traditional Gamper Trophy match, right after Como finishes its Como Cup, a four-team tournament featuring Ajax, Celtic, and Al-Ahli.

While Barcelona heads east to sell its brand, Bayer Leverkusen heads to South America with a different goal. The Bundesliga runners-up will hold their training camp at Flamengo’s headquarters, the Ninho do Urubu. The oddest part? Only one game scheduled, and not against the senior Flamengo squad, but against their Under-20s, who just won the Libertadores in their age group. One single, unorthodox test: "the best way to wake us up, against a young, fast, and recently crowned continental champion," according to sporting director Simon Rolfes. Their official season debut at the BayArena is set for August 5th against Pisa, coached by Alberto Gilardino.

Newcastle, instead, has entered the Coupang Play Series in South Korea. They’ll open the event in Suwon on July 30th against Team K League, a selection of the top domestic league players chosen by online fan voting and staged in full All-Star Game style. A few days later in Seoul, there will be an odd, yet now regular British derby between Newcastle and Tottenham, with the Spurs taking part for the third time. What’s that? Yep, the Son effect.

Finally, digging through July and August’s football schedule, a couple of tours stand out for flipping the footballing world upside down. Johor Darul Ta’zim, a Malaysian Super League club, has set up camp in Spain for a series of friendlies within a 50-kilometer radius (Murcia, Cardiff City, Levante, Valencia B, and four others yet to be announced). Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, South Africa’s Kaizer Chiefs are spending their summer facing five Eredivisie sides (Vitesse, Utrecht, NEC Nijmegen, Zwolle, Twente). If football wanted to remind us it’s the world’s global game, it chose a truly unpredictable way to show it.