Florentino Pérez said it shortly after finishing the Wembley final: “Now the road to the 16th begins.” A slight exaggeration that contains a reality: after yesterday’s celebrations, the demands of Real Madrid rule and we have to think about next season, about improving a campaign that is very difficult to improve. But the 2024-25 season offers room for this, as it will be a campaign with no less than seven competitions at stake: Champions, League, Cup, European Super Cup, Spanish Super Cup, Intercontinental Cup and Club World Cup. And everything will start on August 14, at the National Stadium in Warsaw (Poland) against Atalanta, with the dispute of the European Super Cup, the tournament that pits the Champions and Europa League champions against each other.
Madrid will be seeking its sixth European Super Cup, a tournament it has played eight times in total, with five wins and three losses. It is the competition in which they have recently been most vulnerable at the international level, losing the 2018 edition in Tallinn (Estonia) against Atlético. But the last memory of him is pleasant: in 2022 he won the cup after beating Eintracht Frankfurt 2-0 in Helsinki (Finland). The National Stadium in Warsaw has a capacity of more than 58,000 seats, although a large movement of Madrid fans to the Polish capital is not expected., during the holiday season: in 2022, Madrid requested only 1,800 tickets, compared to 8,000 from Eintracht. Opposite will be Gian Piero Gasperini’s Atalanta, surprising Europa League champions after beating Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen in the final, who had not lost all season.
The next campaign will also see the return of a tournament that was last played in 2004 to be replaced by the Club World Cup: the Intercontinental. Madrid already has three in its showcases and will look for the fourth on December 18, in a venue yet to be defined. And in the summer of 2025, between June 15 and July 13, FIFA’s new project: the 32-team Club World Cup that will take place in the United States. A challenge.
A short tour of the USA
The Madrid coaching staff is already working thinking about the next preseason, preparation for a historic season. It will be a different summer preparation, marked by the Euro Cup in Germany, which will take place between June 14 and July 14, and the Copa América (from June 20 to July 14). There are numerous Madrid players (16, in addition to Mbappé and Endrick) who will be at the events and how far they go will determine when they will join. The Paris Olympic Games also appear in the background, but Madrid intends for none of its players to attend the event.
The players’ return to work is scheduled for the week of July 15-21. Ancelotti will work first with a small group of players that will increase as the Eurocup and the Copa América develop and the players start their subsequent vacations. For all these reasons, Madrid has prepared a shorter tour of the United States than in previous years: it will not stay in Los Angeles and will go directly to its three friendlies on the east coast.: July 31 against Milan in Chicago, August 3 against Barcelona in New Jersey and August 6 against Chelsea in Charlotte (these three duels still have no defined schedule).
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