Real Madrid arrived on Tuesday evening to Los Angeles to start a very hard pre-season to achieve the new challenges for the next season 2017/18. Now it’s Antonio Pintus time, the physical coach, to prepare the players physically for the tough games they have to face.
Los Blancos will train two weeks at UCLA, the University of California, from the 12th of July until the 26th of July, playing a game in between against Manchester United at Santa Clara. They will fly back to LA to face Manchester City before moving out to Miami. But why Real Madrid chose United States to prepare the new season?
The thing is that Los Blancos have chosen 11 times in this century to go to the United States. The first one was in 2002, with Los Galácticos, calling all the attention, including Figo, Raúl or Zinedine Zidane. With Florentino Pérez as a president in this second stage, the team came there three times with José Mourinho, twice with Carlo Ancelotti and now with Zinedine Zidane.
The team will train in the North Athletic Field, very close to José Mourinho and his Manchester United, who also chose UCLA to prepare the season. Los Blancos will rest in the Beverly Hotel and will move to the training ground daily for the tough sessions. Last year, the went on a tour around Canadá, Ohio, Michigan and New Jersey. In the season 2014-15, they went to Australia and China, although they ended up in the States again.
Apart from the physical training, money is very important nowadays. Real Madrid have a huge market to explore at the States and this is the main reason of his trip to America. They are going to play again the International Champions Cup and El Clásico against FC Barcelona in Miami have raised the attention of the public and the media in America.
Before, they used to go to the Alps in Austria to escape from the heat and move to the calm and the cold to prepare the season. However, this is no longer possible and the attention of the media in the States are unavoidable. They will have many marketing promotions and the media could see their training sessions at UCLA. Another kind of pre-season for the most powerful club in the world.
