Inter to visit United States for 2016 International Champions Cup

There may still be a huge amount left to play before this season draws to a close, but Inter are already making plans for how best to prepare themselves for the following campaign by sorting out their pre-season schedule. Or, if you prefer, they're already making plans for how best they are going to use the summer to earn as much money as they possibly can at the expense of their poor jet-lagged players. It's one of the two.

This summer, as announced on the official club website, Inter will be taking part in the 2016 edition of the International Champions Cup, which will see them play travel to the United States and fight it out with nine other European clubs for the prestigious honour of being the first Italian side to lift the trophy (this being the fourth time the tournament has been staged). The fact that we have been asked back at all is something of an achievement in itself, given how terribly we let down our wonderful supporters in China twelve months ago, but hopefully we will put on a better showing for American Interisti this time around.

The Nerazzurri are set to play two stateside games against the champions of both France and Germany, PSG and Bayern Munich, before returning to Europe to play the (probable) champions of Scotland in Celtic. The PSG match will be held on 24th July in the city of Eugene, before the Bayern game takes place in Charlotte six days later, while the friendly with Celtic will be in a to-be-confirmed location on 13th August. For anyone interested in looking for tickets, full details of our three games can be found on the club website here, in an article that also features some corporate prattle from Chief Executive Officer Michael Bolingbroke and a few nice words from Marco Materazzi about the black and blue family. The rest of the ICC fixtures are available here, meanwhile.

As Inter news goes this is very much the kind of story that only an international break could make interesting, but one thing that is quite interesting about this impromptu announcement is the fact that the ICC clashes with the preliminary qualifying rounds of the UEFA Europa League, which there is a chance we will have to take part in (depending on our final league position and the winner of the Coppa Italia). Clearly, the club are confident that we won't need to deal with such a hassle when July arrives, otherwise there may be a problem to sort out. Let's hope not!