Vodafone Cup Details

Tournament
By Chris O'Brien
April 30 2004

ManUtdWeb can reveal that the three clubs playing pre-season friendlies at Old Trafford as part of the inaugural Vodafone Cup will be PSV Eindhoven, Boca Juniors and Japanese outfit Urawa Red Diamonds. The competition will play a leading part in United's pre-season preparation.

PSV Eindhoven, Boca Juniors and Japanese outfit Urawa Red Diamonds look set to join Manchester United in a pre-season tournament at Old Trafford, which will go under the handle of the Vodafone Cup.

The club will not officially announce the teams participating until next week, but on one of my late night searches of web-sites across the web, I came across www.VodafoneCup.com, which I can only assume the club doesn't want supporters to see yet as no links to this web-sites can yet be found on the internet. Of course, this does mean that all information is subject to change and the club will announce the finalised details within the next few days.

The web-site reveals the three teams participating, and also suggests the competition will use an odd points system similar to that used in the Amsterdam Tournament, where in addition to the three points for a win and one point for a draw, teams will pick up one point for simply scoring a goal. Games will be played in two double headers on August 3rd and August 5th, so I would imagine each team only plays two of the other clubs competing, which is the same format used by Ajax in the pre-season cup they have hosted in recent seasons.

United are expected to play PSV Eindhoven on the first day of Vodafone Cup fixtures, and Urawa Red Diamonds on the second. This will mean that we will not have a game against Boca Juniors.

The tournament is part of a busy pre-season tournament for United, which also includes a tour to the United States of America where the Red Devils will face high-profile opposition including Bayern Munich, AC Milan and Scottish League Champions Glasgow Celtic. The trip over the Atlantic Ocean is United's second successive American tour, and is designed to boost the game of football and the club in the country. In addition to this, United are likely to play a couple of other friendly matches, and the club will certainly have to field teams for matches against feeder clubs, with an 'XI' already booked in to place Walsall at the Bescot Stadium on July 27th.

Currently, the pre-season schedule for the first-team squad is as follows:

July 25th v. Bayern Munich (USA Tour)
July 28th v. Glasgow Celtic (USA Tour)
July 31st v. AC Milan (USA Tour)
August 3rd v. PSV Eindhoven (Vodafone Cup)
August 5th v. Urawa Red Diamonds (Vodafone Cup)