Pre-season tours can be a hectic time for a club, especially when they involve the announcement of a marquee signing.
When Arsenal arrived late at their Philadelphia hotel on Sunday, July 28, Riccardo Calafiori was waiting for them. After traveling to London to take his medical on July 27, he joined the team directly in the United States. It was such a short stopover that Calafiori didn’t even have time to stop at Arsenal’s London Colney educational ground.
Arsenal held an open educational consultation scheduled for Monday at 12:15 p. m. And manager Mikel Arteta was clear: he wanted Calafiori to be involved. That meant 14 whirlwind hours in which Calafiori met with the team, participated in photo and media duties, and filled out all the necessary paperwork.
Meet new teammates for the first time ❤️ pic. twitter. com/JbUhqOBCMN
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) July 29, 2024
One of the benefits of being on the road is that Arsenal’s most sensible contributors are all in the same position at the same time, allowing them to work temporarily and efficiently. After a concerted effort by several members of the club’s staff, Arsenal have finalized all aspects of the deal.
At the start of training, Calafiori was escorted onto the pitch and appeared before the media, before taking part in a low-intensity individual session. His career at Arsenal had begun.
Calafiori joined Arsenal for the final leg of the tour, but the rest of the team had already been in the United States for a week. The traveling party revealed this to the Arsenal players just one day before their scheduled departure date of July 21. For Arsenal’s established early teams, this was no challenge; However, for his academy contingent, it meant a nervous wait.
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In the end, Arteta named a 26-man squad, 11 of whom are academy players aged 21 or younger. Tommy Setford, the 18-year-old goalkeeper, left Ajax just in time to board the plane, but Takehiro Tomiyasu had to withdraw. He delayed due to a knee injury. He was left to rehabilitate in north London with Kieran Tierney. It is doubtful that Tomiyasu will be able to play the remainder of the preseason, while Tierney is already ruled out.
Arsenal boarded their chartered plane with 125 employees, as well as coaches, chefs, analysts, security officers and members of the control team. Despite being a big team, Arsenal are actually much lighter than many of the top European teams.
The Gunners’ first stop was at the Four Seasons Hotel near Thousand Oaks, California. They trained at the former LA Rams facility near Cal Lutheran University.
Despite the heat, education is intense. Attendees noted how elegant Gabriel Jesus looked and how comfortable Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly seemed in this high-end environment.
Even in their free time, soccer players love to compete. Léandro Trossard is content to take down an organization of bloodhounds in the pool. The kids at the academy found time to play minigolf. The table tennis matches between teams were very competitive. Naturally, the young players were very happy every time one of them managed to beat a high-level professional.
That component of the challenge of this tour: the team formed by two transparent halves, divided equally between experienced players and youth players. Arteta and Arsenal were very happy with the way those teams gelled.
While many young players have already trained with the first team, for many it was the first time they socialized with their more senior counterparts. The pre-training gym sessions were a chance for the entire organization to mingle. Reiss Nelson, for example, played table tennis in front of teenagers like Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly, while older Jorginho and Jesús allowed themselves to be chatted and given advice. By the end of the tour, they were a band.
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“We learned a lot from those 10 days in many areas,” Arteta reflected. “The way we live in combination with all the staff and the players, and the way the new ones came together and the state that everyone is in, in a condition to play after 3 or 4 days at a time like this, here.
“I’m pleased that we had time to spend with the players from our academy. They were phenomenal and I would have liked to give everyone a chance. I couldn’t, but those who had it grabbed it with both hands and me. “I’m also very satisfied with it.
Arsenal played their first friendly match of the trip at the LA Galaxy’s Dignity Health Sports Park, the second largest soccer stadium in the United States. Captain Martin Odegaard had been suffering from illness since his arrival in the United States and started on the bench.
There were three 17-year-olds in the eleven: Ayden Heaven played in central defence, Lewis-Skelly in left defense and Nwaneri in midfield. Arteta and his team were inspired: none of the three seemed out of position against an experienced and physical Bournemouth side. Academy forward Charles Sagoe Junior celebrated his birthday by making a second half appearance as a substitute.
The match ended in a 1–1 draw, with Fabio Vieira scoring the first goal with a volley before Antoine Semenyo equalised. The night ended with the penalty shoot-out, in which Karl Hein won the game with two impressive saves. The Estonian foreigner also indulged in the psychology of the penalty shootout, protecting the ball and passing it to the Arsenal receiver before the penalty.
Arteta loves those pre-established kicks. This is a rare opportunity to test and emulate the tension of a knockout match. Arsenal also drew on penalties after their friendly win against Manchester United.
The evening’s work did not end with the shooting. After the match, the second-half substitutes took part in a full 45-minute educational session on the pitch, in addition to a small organisational match. When this was over, it was getting late. Arsenal players restocked with a meal prepared on-site through their roving chefs, while some like Jurrien Timber took the opportunity to meet with visiting friends and family.
A senior debut for gunner Josh Nichols ? pic. twitter. com/r6GRtNJwQ0
– Arsenal Academy (@ArsenalAcademy) July 25, 2024
Due to their country’s progress in the Copa America and the European Championship, Gabriel Magalhaes, Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz flew to sign for the team on July 25.
That evening, Arteta, Edu and the management team joined the club’s owners for dinner in Beverly Hills. The next day, Stan and Josh Kroenke attended a network training event where Arsenal tied the knot with the KSE-owned NFL team, the Los Angeles Rams, for a network training initiative called Football Meets Football .
Arteta and his Rams counterpart Sean McVay were in attendance, as were the team’s respective captains Martin Odegaard and Cooper Kupp.
“I know Sean well,” Arteta said of McVay. “We’ve met several times and obviously we have the same ownership, which connects everyone, just the coaches, but also the players and the organization.
“There’s a lot of knowledge and skills that we learn and develop from each other and it was wonderful to see them all together. Not that we have the opportunity to do that, but it’s anything we can really use to achieve it. ” advantages for everyone in the organization.
Elsewhere, former players representing KSE groups, as well as staff and constituents, gathered for lunch and a panel discussion about their careers and sporting experiences. These events are part of an ongoing campaign to build links within the KSE network. Arsenal recognizes these groups as part of its extended family.
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Ahead of the friendly against Manchester United, Arsenal moved to a hotel at SoFi Stadium.
Last summer, the pre-season match against Barcelona at SoFi was delayed by 30 minutes due to on-pitch considerations. Arsenal were determined to prevent a repeat of it. As soon as this appointment was agreed last August, they and KSE began the procedure to secure a new surface. Arsenal sent their ground manager before the excursion to make sure everything went according to plan. The box used Bermuda grass grown in Palm Springs and was placed on top of the NFL box, separated via a heavy-duty transient surface system.
Off the pitch, Arsenal made a copy of the highlighted letters that can be found outside the Emirates Stadium. The club brought former players Gilberto Silva and Theo Walcott on tour as ambassadors and at SoFi they participated in a Q&A consultation with fans. .
Arsenal got off to a difficult start when Rasmus Hojlund headed past Heaven to score the first goal. Jorginho spoke directly to his young teammate, offering words of encouragement, and Array Oleksandr Zinchenko was not far behind. With the support of his teammates, Heaven recovered and put on an impressive performance.
“He lost a duel against one of the most powerful and fastest players in the world,” Arteta said after the match. “It can happen, but the subsequent reaction, the composure, the quality, the framework language that he had was all remarkable. I’m satisfied with him.
When United were weakened by the loss of Hojlund and Lenny Yoro to injury, Arsenal took advantage, turning things around thanks to goals from Brazilian pair Jesus and Martinelli.
Since this is Los Angeles, several celebrity enthusiasts were inevitably in attendance. Arsenal enthusiasts Will Poulter, Ted Lasso’s Brendan Hunt and Justin Bieber were in attendance, with Bieber even invited onto the pitch after full-time. Bieber in particular asked for a photo with Ben White, Havertz and Odegaard.
Former Arsenal players Jen Beattie and Tobin Heath were also among those in attendance.
The next day, Arsenal travelled to Philadelphia, but there were going to be some personnel changes within the group. Sporting director Edu was negotiating the sale of Emile Smith Rowe from Arsenal’s hotel in Los Angeles, with the final days of talks centred on the timing of payments. Smith Rowe did not play a minute on the excursion; as the agreement approached, the Club decided that it was prudent to protect themselves from injury.
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Smith Rowe left the Arsenal camp on Sunday morning. In the end, he expressed his desire to sign for Fulham, something Arsenal were willing to respect.
In Philadelphia, the Arsenal stayed at the Westin Hotel, and even converted one of the convention halls into a makeshift physical treatment room. The busy itinerary meant the players didn’t have much downtime during the tour, although Arteta allowed them to pass out for one night. .
At the height of the excursion, Arsenal faced Arne Slot’s Liverpool at Lincoln Financial Field. Calafiori didn’t take any chances so soon after his escape, while Timber also rested. The attendance was 69,879 people, a record for sold out tickets for a football stadium in this stadium.
The public enjoyed a match played with greater intensity. Arsenal’s urgency allowed them to take the lead, but a counterattack allowed Mohamed Salah to break through and score. Fabio Carvalho scored a great goal of the moment before Havertz went home. as a consolation.
After greeting the American fans, the Arsenal players enjoyed a quick post-match refreshment before passing via passport to the stadium. This allowed them to leave quickly: after already passing through immigration at Lincoln Financial Field, they boarded a series of coaches that took them directly to the tarmac to take the flight back home. Preparations for the season will be intensified with friendlies against Bayer Leverkusen on August 7 and Lyon on August 11.
And neither did Arsenal’s last appearance in the United States this summer. Later this month, the women’s team will begin a cross-country excursion in Washington DC.
(Main photos: Getty Images)