Opinion: ICC will only help Roma get better - on and off the pitch

If America is still known as the land of opportunity, then Roma’s return to the country this summer makes perfect sense.

Summer 'friendlies' can and should be anything but, and the boon that they can offer clubs are wide-reaching and numerous. Consider, for example, that Roma’s presence in the United States is only growing and has been for a number of years, for reasons ranging from signing one of the most well-known American midfielders (Michael Bradley) to having a president who is American and based in Boston.

Connecting with the passionate and dedicated fanbase State-side is an important and rare chance for the club to continue to connect with those outside of Rome, a contingent of supporters who - given the global growth of the game – is significant in size.

Equally importantly, participating in an organised format like the International Champions’ Cup allows the summer pre-season to be more than ‘friendlies’: more meaningful, more intriguing, more important to the club. The centralised structure, consistent occurrence, and large audience allows some of the biggest clubs in the world to take part.

These are not the pre-season friendlies of yester-year, when Italian sides played Serie D teams that ended in one-sided scorelines, where the only question seemed to be which attacker would grab the most goals.

When the top clubs from Italy, Spain, England, and France participate, the tournament becomes a different entity – a unique showcase with sporting and social benefits. It gives coaches a chance to hone their ideas for next season. New signings can be integrated into the team and worked out against top-level opposition. Formations can be fine-tuned and experimented with against viable resistance.

Players can get a feel for the system while putting in a more typical shift: winning the ICC might not be every young player’s dream but that possible silverware, coupled with the desire not to embarrass yourself against elite players in front of a different, huge audience, suddenly adds up to a whole lot of motivation.

In other words, people are watching – from the stands and on TV, as dozens of countries get access to the feed. The opposition are some of the best in the world. This is, truly, one of (if not the) best possible ways to prepare for an upcoming season.

For Roma, that certainly is an opportunity not to be missed.

And there will be no excuses, because the Giallorossi will indeed be facing some of the best teams on the planet.

It begins on July 19th against Paris Saint-Germain, who need no real introduction, as one of Europe’s and France’s most recent superclubs. Second in Ligue 1 this season and just three points off Monaco in first, they’re a team stacked with talent throughout. For Roma, it’ll be a chance to see how the side can cope against quality in each area of the pitch, and the match-ups (depending, of course, on summer transfer activity) are fitting for two sides getting ready for a long season of serious competition.

How will Edin Dzeko fare trying to score past Kevin Trapp and the familiar Marquinhos and Thiago Silva, or Mohamed Salah and Stefan El Shaarawy versus Layvin Kurzawa and Serge Aurier? How about Kevin Strootman and Radja Nainggolan trying to boss a midfield with perhaps the greatest young midfielder on the planet in Marco Verratti? And the defence will have its hands full with one of the greatest strikers to grace Serie A over the past decade: Edison Cavani.

Six days later will be a fascinating battle against Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham in New Jersey. Here Roma will face an entirely different duel against the tenacity and grit of one of England’s most consistent teams of the past few years. It’s yet a different chance for the team to meet the demands of a side that press high and defend ruggedly, full of young talents like Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Victor Wanyama, and Toby Alderweireld.

And, of course, it will be a return for Erik Lamela to face his old side, five years after playing for the team against El Salvador in the same stadium under Zdenek Zeman.

Roma’s final opponent needs no introduction. It’s clear that the team’s final match in Boston on July 30th will be anything but friendly as they face Max Allegri’s Juventus, eternal rivals in the league and too often the fatal foe for Roma’s title hunts.

It’s fitting that the side will end their spell in America against the opposition that will most precisely prepare them for the upcoming Serie A season, allowing the squad to see what the rest of pre-season needs to look like so that the side will be ready to face Juve and the other 18 teams in the league by the middle of August.

When Arsenal drew holders Milan in the Champions’ League roughly ten seasons ago, Arsene Wenger stated that he wasn’t concerned: to be the best, you have to beat the best. Roma are not going to become the best club in the world by winning the ICC this summer, or by sweeping the three matches that are set before them, but it will offer them the chance to beat some of the best, and therefore be better prepared to make another step forward when the 2017-18 season does get underway.

And thousands of delighted Giallorossi fans, united in passion with their Italian brothers but painfully separated by geography, will get the opportunity to watch them do it.


Learn more about Roma's 2017 International Champions Cup itinerary here.