The prelude to a European football season is never without a range of quirky, unforeseeable results – even though they are often of little consequence to what lies ahead.
ATV Irdning 0-22 Everton (2018)
Everton fans have been thoroughly spoiled for pre-season drama in the 2010s. Back in August 2010, the club welcomed its Chilean namesake from Vina Del Mar to Goodison Park and won 2-0.
Two years later, Tony Hibbert scored in his testimonial against AEK Athens, sparking an arranged pitch invasion from the Gwladys Street faithful. However, nothing compares to the events of last July.
On a boiling day in deepest Austria, Marco Silva led Everton out for the very first time, and to say his managerial debut for the Toffees was memorable would be an understatement.
The victims were ATV Irdning, of the fifth tier in Austria’s football pyramid, and they found themselves on the receiving end of a 22-0 scoreline.
The score at the break was 10-0, and perhaps the most memorable sight was the Irdning goalkeeper leaning to one side and allowing one more to roll over the line.
Claim though he might to have been waiting for the offside flag, there was no detracting from the element of comedy this game produced.
Everton sat sixth in the Premier League by October, but a dreadful run between early December and mid-February certainly dampened the club’s European aspirations.
Bayern Munich 20-2 Rottach Egern (2018)
Just one month after the world watched the footballing equivalent of a lion taking on a rabbit, German champions Bayern enjoyed a little 22-goal 'exhibition' of their own.
In doing so, they also recorded a first double-figures friendly win since a 13-0 thrashing of Qatari club Al Sailiya in 2013.
This time, the favourites with the betting sites did not score all of the goals, and those who scored the most extremely scant of consolations against Die Roten will have a story to tell future generations.
Though nobody knows if they had the brass neck to each take home a match ball, Kingsley Coman and Robert Lewandowski completed their hat-tricks in the first half before Sandro Wagner and Maximilian Franzke added to the scoreline with hat-tricks of their own.
Thomas Muller and James Rodriguez also netted two goals apiece, with a total of 10 different players scoring for the Bavarians. However, Bayern's invincibility was brought into question, with the outclassed minnows scoring twice in the first half.
Even some of those sitting alongside Bayern near the top of the football betting outrights market weren't able to manage that against the German champions last season...
Manchester City 9-6 Chelsea (2013)
With this actually being the aggregate scoreline of two US-based friendly games in the prelude to 2013/14, this addition seems like something of a cop-out.
However, it was a meeting of two teams expected to be involved in an intense race for the Premier League title. Playing with a combination of skill and no cause for fear, the sides produced seven goals in St Louis.
Chelsea raced into a three-goal lead, but in a taste of events to come, City surprised the live betting markets and fought back to win 4-3.
The very next day, the two teams faced off in New York, and City were the ones that struck first, with Gareth Barry netting after just three minutes.
City would later go 2-0 up, but wholesale changes at half-time saw Chelsea emerge the stronger and halve the deficit. James Milner (City) and Ramires (Chelsea) then exchanged goals for 3-2.
Samir Nasri scored to restore the two-goal cushion, before Juan Mata halved it, then Edin Dzeko finally delivered the coup de grace on Chelsea, making it 5-3 from 25 yards.
Dallas 2-2 Saignon XI (1967)
When it comes to 'unusual pairings', look no further than this friendly, which came just one month before the Tet Offensive flashpoint at the height of the Vietnam war.
During the Dallas Tornado's world tour of 1967/68, the Texan outfit played 45 goodwill friendlies in 26 different countries.
The Tornado also covered every continent and even played the Japan national team. Undoubtedly though, the most intense experience would have been the team's brace of score draws (for a 3-3 aggregate result) against Vietnamese select teams in Saigon.
Intense though the atmosphere undoubtedly was, these matches helped serve as a brief distraction in the midst of a war.
International Champions Cup - Famous Games:
The efforts of European clubs to generate hype in continents such as North America and Asia are nothing new.
However, with the International Champions Cup (ICC) becoming less of a 'friendly competition' considering how much exposure is now at stake, many of the matches are now memorable affairs that certainly don't lack motivation.
Real Madrid Conquer The East - Part 1 (2015)
2015 marked the first time that the ICC went truly global, with Europe’s finest now battling it out in Australia and China. While PSG won the North American competition, Real Madrid completed an 'Eastern Double', lifting the ICC in both of the new territories.
The Australian triumph was first, with Real losing in a penalty shootout with Roma that went to Sudden Death, but Real went on to beat Manchester City 4-1 in the final.
First-half goals from Benzema, Ronaldo and Pepe all but killed the game before the break, and City were nothing but onlookers.
Real Madrid Conquer The East - Part 2 (2015)
However, Real Madrid’s penalty drama was far from over. Just six days later, the Galacticos fought to a 0-0 draw with AC Milan and won 10-9 on penalties in a heart-rending shootout neither deserved to lose.
Toni Kroos’ penalty miss would go unpunished, with each scoring four out of five. They then scored five each, leaving it up to the goalkeepers.
Real’s Kiko Casillas was first up and slotted past his opposite number Gianluigi Donnarumma. The two men swapped places, Donnarumma missed, and Real Madrid’s second trophy inside a week was in the bag.
Aussie Rules OK (2016)
A-League has a reputation as a retirement resort for players seeking one last hurrah. However, Melbourne Victory used home advantage in their one and only ICC match on home turf to defeat Italian giants and 2019/20 Serie A sports betting favourites Juventus.
No other 'competition' could put these two teams on the same pitch, and while Juventus were mitigated by travel fatigue, they still outclassed their hosts and took the lead after the hour mark.
They held out until the 83rd minute when Jai Ingham equalised to take the match to penalties.
A visibly shattered Juventus duly lost the shootout, but still went on to win the Australia-based ICC that year.
Friendly No More?
From the depths of the Austrian pyramid to the Australian top flight, small local teams are clearly always eager to mix it with the leading lights of Europe’s biggest domestic leagues.
With interest in globalised exhibitions growing by the year, just how much longer will the summer's ICC and other sponsored pre-season tournaments be considered merely an "exhibition"? After all, the winter schedule in Europe is packed enough…
