Horrible preseason. As AS already announced last March, Madrid and Barcelona will face each other again this summer in the city of Las Vegas (United States) in a new reissue of the Clasico that was played in the 2017 preseason in Miami and ended with a 3-2 victory for Barça. The success, both of the public and of economic benefits for both groups, led to another being devised for the summer of 2020, but the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the proposal was kept in a drawer. Now, with the return to normality in all its variables, the idea has been recovered, with a couple of novelties: both teams will be the ones who rent the stadium together and share the benefits of it.
But beyond the party, It was a show typical of American sports: it had a television audience of nearly 200 million viewers.. The tickets, with a price of 20 dollars, increased their price the same day of the match in the resale (in the United States it is usually legal through platforms such as Starthub) until reaching 8-10,000 dollars depending on the category of the locality.
It will be the third Clásico to be played far from national borders: in 1982 the first was played on Venezuelan soil, with a narrow victory for the Whites (1-0) with a goal from Vicente del Bosque. It was an impromptu match, as the madridistas and azulgranas were taking part in a tournament called the Luis Herrera President’s Cup, together with Inter and Porto. The two Spanish teams were eliminated, and a running match was organized for third and fourth place. Barely 700 people attended… 66,014 spectators attended the Miami one. The stadium in Las Vegas (the Allegiant Stadium) has a capacity of about 65,000 people for NFL games (it is the home of the Las Vegas Raiders) and it opened in 2020, so its influx may be similar to the Miami Classic.
While Barcelona closes its preseason games, the whites are waiting to find out how many signings (apart from Rüdiger and Mbappé, who is closed) to complete their summer preseason. Ancelotti will get his players back at the end of June, beginning of July to start designing the 2022-23 campaign, in which to begin with he has to defend the League title and the Super Cup… for now.
