Last summer, Manchester United rounded off their pre-season tour of the US against Everton in the futuristic Atlanta Stadium where Argentina ended England’s World Cup dream on Wednesday night.
It was the third year in a row that United had toured America, a decision that owed much to the their £300million shirt sponsorship with California-based tech firm Snapdragon, and a preference for training Stateside where the facilities are best in class and the players can enjoy relative freedom compared to the more feverish reception in the Far East, for example.
The United stars were able to go shopping on Rodeo Drive without too much interference when they stayed at the SLS Beverly Hills two years ago, and were regularly seen in the upmarket shops and cafes around the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Chicago last summer.
Sir Alex Ferguson used to love the relatively low profile United had in the US and Jose Mourinho was particularly fond of Los Angeles, although Louis van Gaal raged against the commercial demands on his players.
Showpiece tours, playing big teams in big stadiums (more than 109,000 watched United face Real Madrid in Michigan in 2009), keep the sponsors happy and are also highly lucrative.
United are understood to have earned £7.5m from participating in the Premier League Summer Series against Bournemouth, West Ham and Everton a year ago. The club are said to have brought in a similar figure from their first post-season tour to Malaysia and Hong Kong a couple of months earlier. If plans had gone ahead to visit Saudi Arabia in the middle of last season, United would have expected to earn around £5m a game.
Manchester United’s players at the Atlanta Stadium on their tour of America last summer
Bruno Fernandes arrives in Chicago ahead of United’s USA extravaganza in 2025
So tours are about more than pre-season preparation and engaging with a global fanbase that has taken United to the US on so many occasions, as well as the Far East, South Africa and Australia over the years.
The club usually add on a friendly in Scandinavia, or even Scotland in recent years. Typically, there is at least one game at Old Trafford too, but the pitch is still being prepared after it was ripped up for the first time in 14 years, and won’t be ready until the first home game of the season against Ipswich on August 30.
However, rather than touring this summer, United have decided to spend the entire pre-season in Europe – starting with Saturday’s game against Wrexham in Helsinki.
They then face Rosenborg in Trondheim a week on Friday, Atletico Madrid in Stockholm on Saturday, August 1, and Paris Saint-Germain in Gothenburg on Saturday, August 8.
Michael Carrick and his players will fly in the day before the games and leave straight afterwards – apart from the clash with Leeds at Dublin’s Croke Park on Wednesday, August 12 which will form part of a one-week training camp in Ireland.
United then finish off their pre-season programme against AC Milan in Wroclaw on Saturday, August 15, before beginning the 2026-27 campaign with a lunchtime kick-off at newly-promoted Hull City a week later.
So why have the Premier League’s biggest club gone from globe-trotters to day-trippers this summer?
The main reason is the World Cup. Like most big clubs, United have had a number of stars at the tournament in North America, and each of them is contractually entitled to up to four weeks’ holiday after their World Cup is over. For Kobbie Mainoo, Marcus Rashford and Lisandro Martinez, that won’t be until this weekend. Bruno Fernandes, Matheus Cunha, Amad Diallo, Senne Lammens, Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui are already on the beach.
United’s new signing Andrey Santos is expected to be included in a big squad to face Wrexham in the 36,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in Helsinki on Saturday
David Beckham and Ole Gunnar Solksjaer on United’s tour of south-east Asia in 2001 – United’s US fans felt shortchanged when Beckham was sold before a tour in 2003
While new signings Andrey Santos and Karl Darlow are expected to be included in a big squad to face Wrexham in the 36,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Youri Tielemans isn’t due to report for pre-season for several weeks after playing for Belgium as the World Cup players make a staggered return.
First-team regulars like Harry Maguire, Mason Mount, Luke Shaw, Bryan Mbeumo, Benjamin Sesko, Joshua Zirkzee, Leny Yoro, Ayden Heaven and Patrick Dorgu have been back in training for a week and are set to feature in Finland, but the absence of so many other stars meant United felt it was better to take a different approach this summer.
Supporters want to see the biggest names. American fans felt short-changed when United sold David Beckham to Real Madrid weeks before their US tour in 2003, and a year later Ferguson had to send for Paul Scholes, the Neville brothers and Mikael Silvestre, who were resting after Euro 2004, when the quality of United’s squad was criticised following a goalless draw with Bayern Munich in Chicago.
Another World Cup factor that influenced United’s decision not to tour America in particular was a feeling that the US ‘soccer’ market would have been saturated after nearly six weeks of non-stop games across the country, with tickets selling at premium prices. Convincing fans to pay again for friendlies featuring a weakened United team would have been a challenge.
Their Premier League rivals have had other ideas. Liverpool are travelling to America to play in Nashville, New York and Chicago. Manchester City are going to Hong Kong and South Korea, Tottenham are in New Zealand and Australia, and Chelsea in Australia, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
United’s schedule still offers up some big attractions. After all, they are playing European champions Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico and a Milan side managed by their former head coach Ruben Amorim.
It’s unclear how much money they will make from their six games – or how much they might lose by not touring – but it feels like a football-first decision to give Carrick and the players he has available the best opportunity to prepare for a season that sees United returning to the Champions League.
United won’t even stay in Sweden for the week between their games in Stockholm and Gothenburg. The only training camp away from Carrington will be in Dublin as United return to Carton House in Maynooth, where they spent several days during a 24-day gap in the fixture list in March.
Harry Maguire is expected to be involved in Helsinki having been back in pre-season training for a week
They were happy with the facilities, which were so well prepared that Gaelic football team Armagh had to abandon their camp when they arrived a few days earlier because the pitches had already been marked out for United.
The club have planned ahead for Helsinki, too and are taking over the city’s official World Cup fanzone in Musiikkitalo Square on Friday and Saturday. Admission is free and there will be competitions and giveaways, as well as a Q&A session with former United defender Wes Brown. More fans will also gather at Bierhaus Kamppi.
On Friday, United are hosting a coaching clinic with local grassroots team PPJ involving 40 young players aged between 7 and 11 years old, who will be given tickets to the game to see Carrick’s side kick off what is going to be a very different pre-season.
