Monday, July 15th, marks the start of Real Madrid’s pre-season preparations ahead of the 2024/25 campaign, which will kick off in earnest with the UEFA European Super Cup on August 14th against Europa League winners Atalanta at the Stadion Narodowy in Warsaw, Poland.
Coach Carlo Ancelotti had a depleted squad available to him for the medical checks and first session of the new season, owing primarily to the fact that many of his regular stars have been busy in action in the European Championships and the Copa América. As a result, they are enjoying an extended vacation period before travelling back to the Spanish capital to begin preparations for the new season.
The club are keen to reunite everyone as quickly as possible to begin full squad training, as demonstrated by the club’s reluctance to allow players to join their nations for the Olympic Games.
There will first be two weeks of training at the club’s base in Madrid at their Valdebebas center, before then heading on a tour of the US. The expectation from the club is that players who were eliminated before the semi-finals of any international tournaments, such as Luka Modric and Andriy Lunin, rejoin before that starts on July 28th.
July 28th is when Real Madrid will travel across the Atlantic for their tour of the USA, which will include three exhibition games across the country in the space of a week.
Unlike in previous years, where the club have based themselves out of UCLA and travelled for friendlies, with four the usual number, this year the squad will be based on the east coast but with no fixed training base.
Their first game will take place in Chicago, at the Soldier Field stadium, where Real Madrid will take on Italian side AC Milan at 8:30pm CT in their first match of the new season.
Following that, they will fly to New Jersey, where they will then play the now traditional pre-season Clásico against FC Barcelona on August 3rd, with a 7pm ET kick-off. It will be the first time Carlo Ancelotti takes on the Blaugrana under new coach Hansi Flick, in what could be an intriguing encounter at the MetLife Stadium.
The tour will wrap up at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, where Real Madrid will kick off their final exhibition game at 7pm ET against Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea.
The squad will then return to Europe, most likely on August 8th, to enjoy a few days of training and rest at their home base before travelling to Poland on August 12th, two days ahead of the Super Cup final which proceeds their La Liga debut on Sunday of that week, August 18th, against Mallorca.
Given France’s qualification for the Euro 2024 semi-finals, where they lost to Spain, it is not expected that new superstar signing Kylian Mbappé will join the club for their US tour.
Instead, he is expected to join the team for training in their base in Valdebebas from August 6th. There, he will join the likes of French team-mates, Aurélien Tchouameni, Eduardo Camavinga and Ferland Mendy, as well as those of other nations, such as Dani Carvajal, Jude Bellingham and Fede Valverde.
They will begin their preparations in time to have completed the usual initial pre-season medical examinations and fitness checks before the rest of the squad arrive from the US to begin preparations for the European Super Cup.
As such, it is expected that Mbappé will not be available until the game in Poland, though even then he is unlikely to start for Los Blancos unless Carlo Ancelotti believes him to be in great condition.