Real Madrid will face Italian giants Juventus Saturday night in Landover, Maryland at FedEx Field. In Los Blancos second match of the preseason tour and Juve’s fourth, the defending Champions League winners will be looking to win this match as retribution for what happened earlier this summer.
There is a growing rivalry between Real Madrid and Juventus. Over the last two season, Real has defeated the Old Lady in the Champions League Final in 2017 and the UCL quarterfinals in 2018 thanks to a penalty kick goal from Ronaldo in stoppage time.
To get back at the side from the Spanish capital, Juve moved swiftly to sign Cristiano this summer, shocking the entire football world. Now, even though three starters from those four meetings in the last two years won’t be on the field for Real Madrid, the club will want blood.
Although many look at the preseason as nothing more than a time for players to work on their fitness and shake off the rust from their summer vacations, I can say with certainty that Julen Lopetegui and many of the players who feature in this match will want to win.
CR7 will not be playing tonight – thankfully – but a handful of big names have been with Juve on their United States tour. The likes of Sami Khedira, new signing Emer Can, Alex Sandro, and Miralem Pjanic have been with the squad and could feature in this match.
Here is a look at the full squads from both sides courtesy of Goal.com.
After playing a heavily rotated side on Tuesday in Miami, Lopetegui might start some of his bigger names such as Keylor Navas, Dani Carvajal, Isco, Marco Asensio, and Toni Kroos. These five players have been back training with the club for over a week now and should at least get 45 minutes of work in tonight.
Therefore, expect the attack to really be cooking in the first half as The Whites try to get an early lead of their budding rivals.
Juve has not only impressed with their haul of transfers this summer, but with their play on the field in the US thus far. They are undefeated, having defeated Bayern Munich 2-0, Benfica on penalties, and the MLS All-Stars on penalties as well.
If you were on the fence about watching tonight’s match, change your mind. For at least the first half of this game, it should be very fun to see how intense the Real Madrid players are facing off against a side that took their star player just a month ago.
If Ronaldo was playing, I can’t even imagine how intense the battle would be. But, lucky for us Madridstas who are still mourning his departure, we will not have to deal with seeing him play against Los Blancos just yet.
The match kicks off at 6:05 PM EST on ESPN 2.