Real Madrid really needs and wants to play plenty of preseason matches before the La Liga season kicks off. Los Blancos have decided to add a seventh warm up game against AS Roma!
Real Madrid will return to the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy for the second time in less than a year to face Italian giant AS Roma in the club’s final tune up match before facing Celta Vigo on August the 17th.
Since Real Madrid left for North America just over two weeks ago, the club has added two more preseason matches, against Red Bull Salzburg in Austria on August 7th and this match against Roma on August 11th.
The last time Real was in southern Italy was in late-November for the fifth day of the Champions League group stage.
Led by then manager Santiago Solari, the visitors were lucky to be tied at 0-0 after the first half, but a goal from Gareth Bale two minutes into the second frame and a beautiful build-up play capped off by a Lucas Vazquez tap in saw Real Madrid win the match 2-0 and top the group as well.
In the last two meetings between these sides – both in the UCL group stage last fall – the Royal Whites managed to shutout the Romans.
With a week off before the trip the trip to Austria and then a couple of days between the last two preseason matches, Zinedine Zidane is going to be quite busy making sure he has his lineup in order.
Goals have been hard to come by and the defense has been lacking for the majority of the first four games this new campaign. As we saw on Tuesday afternoon against Tottenham, another costly mistake from Marcelo cost his side the match and there was little response from the forwards.
I think the decision to play another friendly away from the Santiago Bernabéu – the club isn’t able to play there at the moment anyway – is a good thing that will build character and hopefully help with any lingering rust players might have.
This will give guys like Casemiro, Eder Militao, and James Rodriguez who are just now returning from their summer holidays a chance to get some practice in before the match against Celta.
AS Roma is in a bit of a transition period themselves with new manager Paulo Fonseca coming over from Shakhtar Donetsk to try and redirect the club after they were relegated to the Europa League due to a lackluster 6th place finish in Serie A.