Arsenal lost 1–3 to Real Betis in a preseason match.
It was a match between an English team and a Spanish team, but the venue was Dublin, Ireland.
It was neither team’s home city.
3-line summary
1. Arsenal lost 1–3 to Betis in preseason.
2. They are a London team, but the match was held in Dublin.
3. It is difficult to predict the season from preseason results.
Dublin, August 5
According to local reports including Sky Sports, the two teams met at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium on August 5 local time, with Arsenal losing 1–3. It was the first meeting between the two clubs.
Arsenal will then face Dortmund at home on August 9 and Manchester City in the Community Shield on the 16th. That means their fixtures are concentrated in the three weeks immediately before the season opens.
Preseason Matches Are Products
The term “friendly” can make them sound like mere warm-up matches, but in reality they are products that are bought and sold.
The party seeking to host the match pays the club. This is called an appearance fee, and British media reports indicate that major clubs receive several million pounds in appearance fees alone from a single overseas summer trip. Local sponsor events and jersey sales are added on top of that.
That is why destinations are not determined by football logic alone. Even places with major time differences and demanding travel are visited if the market is large. This is why English clubs have flocked to the United States and Asia in recent years.
Dublin is somewhat different. It is just over an hour by plane from London, so the travel burden is low, and Ireland has a substantial population that supports English clubs. It is, in effect, a place to move little and sell big.
It Is Not a Good Choice for Training
For clubs, summer is originally a period for building fitness. Long-distance travel and time differences directly clash with that goal.
They still go because they see the revenue as greater than the loss to training. With transfer fees and salaries continuing to rise, the cash generated by a few weeks in summer has become too substantial to ignore.
This balance is a source of debate every year. Managers say the schedule is excessive, while club operations say the money becomes funds for player signings. Neither is wrong, so a conclusion is hard to reach.
Conditions Are Especially Poor This Summer
Because it is a World Cup year.
Players who played for their national teams take vacations after the tournament and join later. In fact, several key Arsenal players were absent from this match because of their World Cup schedules.
So the lineup that took the field in this match is significantly different from the lineup that will play during the season. It is unreasonable to carry the score of a match with a different player composition over into a season forecast. This is one reason preseason results often diverge from what happens after the opening of the season.
The same is true of players who arrived during the summer and have not yet developed chemistry with their teammates. Cohesion takes time, so there is no reason for it to be complete in early August.
Summer Schedules Are Usually Structured Like This
“Preseason” is used as a broad term, but it is divided into stages.
The first roughly two weeks are a period for building fitness without matches. It is work to get bodies back up to speed after several weeks of rest following the end of the season, so it has nothing to do with match performance. During this period, teams may play short matches against lower-division or amateur sides.
Then comes a period like the current one. Teams face opponents of similar level to check their match sharpness. This is also when they consider styles in selecting opponents, sometimes deliberately arranging a match against a team that plays similarly to their opening opponent.
The final stage is the week immediately before the season begins. During this period, teams reduce matches and focus on recovery. That is why first-choice players tend to play longer as preseason progresses. Playing time itself shows the manager’s plan.
There Are Still Things to Watch
There are things to watch other than the score.
One is where a newly signed player is positioned. The lineup is where the manager’s plans for how to use that player first become apparent.
The timing of substitutions is also information. In preseason, teams usually make wholesale changes at the 45- or 60-minute mark, but if only certain players come on and go off at different times, it may mean their fitness needs separate management.
This is also when teams check things that require agreement across the entire side, such as the height of the defensive line and where pressing begins. Results may fluctuate, but the direction becomes visible.
Preseason matches serve two purposes at once. One is to build fitness, and the other is to make money.
The two purposes do not always point in the same direction. Matches held in unfamiliar cities in August are usually the result of the latter winning out over the former.
References
- Sky Sports Arsenal 1-3 Real Betis — Match Report & Highlights
- Aviva Stadium Pre-Season Friendly — Arsenal v Real Betis
- Daily Mail Scuppered summer tours cost Big Six millions