As part of their pre-season preparations for the 2019/20 campaign, Borussia Dortmund will return to the United States between 15 and 20 July to play two friendlies against high-class opponents.
The first stop on the tour will be Seattle – the largest city in the northwest of the USA – where head coach Lucien Favre’s charges will go up against Seattle Sounders on 17 July (kick-off: 7:30pm PDT; 4:30am German time), who were American champions in 2016. Having already squared off against fellow MLS club Los Angeles FC – at present the best team in the United States – last summer (1-1 draw), the clash with the Sounders will be the second time the Black & Yellows face a top club from the rapidly growing MLS.
That match-up will be followed by a reunion with Liverpool at an extraordinary venue two days later. BVB will take on the Reds at the campus of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana in what will be the first football match ever played in the history of the 77,000-capacity Notre Dame Stadium. The kick-off for that match in what will certainly be an electrifying atmosphere is 8pm EDT; 2am German time. „It obviously would be amazing if both clubs were able to present themselves as champions of their countries“, said current LFC and former BVB manager Jürgen Klopp. Both BVB and LFC are currently involved in a title race in their respective countries. In any case, both clubs are looking forward to another meeting, having previously met in Charlotte in the USA only last summer when BVB ran out 3-1 winners.
There were initially no plans for BVB to go back across the Atlantic this summer. “It’s true that we’d initially been planning another trip to Asia this summer,” said BVB COO Carsten Cramer. “But the two highly appealing games that have now been agreed in such fascinating venues and against such extraordinary opponents – a leading team in the USA and our long-term friends from Liverpool – forced us into a rethink and ultimately prompted us to decline all the other options we had on the table.”
“Nonetheless, it’s part of our philosophy to always travel to the same target market two years in a row when the possibility arises, in order to offer the local fans a continuous BVB presence and strengthen both friendships and partnerships with local sponsors. Following our successful debut tour last summer, which included four friendlies across the country – all the way from California to the East Coast – we would like to put in another Black & Yellow appearance that is well-received by the fans and fosters an even closer emotional connection between them and Borussia Dortmund.”
At the same time, Cramer reiterated “to our many fans all across Asia, who had been eagerly awaiting a reunion with the BVB team, that all of Borussia Dortmund’s plans were currently geared towards paying them another visit in the summer of 2020 and 2021”.