With the FIFA Confederations Cup finished, the players are just finishing up with their vacations and will return for this year's pre-season. Training for this will begin on July 8th. Similar to last year, the team will play pre-season games in Germany. These games aren't exactly against big-name teams but I think last year's German pre-season avoided us the fate of Barcelona and Real Madrid against German teams as we did relatively well against Bayern Munich. The matches are as follows:
Date Opponent Venue
14 July 2013 Karlsruher Karlsruhe, Germany
17 July 2013 Waldhof Mannheim Mannheim, Germany
20 July 2013 Stuttgart Ludwigsburg, Germany
Next is a rather interesting competition. Guinness will host an International Champions Cup this year. This competition includes the following clubs: AC Milan (Italy), Chelsea (England), Everton (England), Inter Milan (Italy), Juventus (Italy), LA Galaxy (USA), Real Madrid (Spain), Valencia (Spain). We got some really tough competition here. It will be a good test for the new coach. I like to be optimistic but I don't think we'll win.
Regardless, here is how the fixtures go for us:
Date Opponent Venue
27 July 2013 AC Milan Valencia, Spain
4 August 2013 Chelsea/Inter Milan New York City, USA
6/7 August 2013 TBD Miami USA
The rest depends on how we do in the above games, but here is the match bracket so you get an idea.
Finally, Valencia will host the Trofeo Naranja (Orange Cup) like it has been doing almost every year since 1959. We have won this Cup 25 times since 1959. This year, like last year, consists only of one game.
Date Opponent Venue
10 August 2013 Olympiacos (Greece) Valencia, Spain
And that's how the pre-season is looking so far. I hope we do well and that the new coach can work well with the team to give us something to look forward to for the 2013-14 season.
AMUNT VALENCIA!!!!
AMUNT VALENCIA!!!!