The World Cup 2018 may be in the book and the start of the new Premier League season does not kick up until the middle of August, but there are plenty of space fillers for your football betting coming along pretty soon.
July 20th will see the start of the 2018 International Champions Cup and that opening game will be Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund from Soldier Field, Chicago.
The International Champions Cup is a friendly tournament at club level for some of the biggest clubs around Europe. There is nothing at stake other than just sides trying to get new players to fit into their new clubs and for some pre-season conditioning. Still, this is now a staple of the summer action and it will bring with it plenty of betting opportunities.
The International Champions Cup
There are 18 sides taking part in this summer’s event. Each of those teams will play three games and so this will be a limited format. You are not going to see each team taking on everyone else that’s taking part because that would be far too big of a deal. There will be a champion that is crowned though with all of that having been said. All of the 18 teams will be separated out in a league table format and the team which finishes their three matches with the best record will be Champions. You will be seeing a lot of these teams coming up in next season’s UEFA Champions League.
The tournament is being hosted in three different geographical areas. They are Europe, the USA and Singapore. Most of the matches will be coming from the USA while there are only two of the fixtures being played in Singapore and they both involve Arsenal. New Gunners’ boss Unai Emery leads the Premier League side into action against Atletico Madrid and then PSG. In total there will be 27 matches to look at for your International Champions Cup 2018 betting.
Who is taking part
England: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham
France: PSG, Lyon (Lyon came in to replace Sevilla who withdrew)
Germany: Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund
Italy: Inter Milan, Juventus, Milan, Roma
Portugal: Benfica
Spain: Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid
International Champions Cup Betting
Because this is a tournament that is not a tournament then for your International Champions Cup Betting it is worth skipping over the outright winner market. It’s just so hard to judge because a team you back could be playing fixtures against tougher sides than another for example. Also, you don’t know what the competitive levels are going to be fully like. Most of this, as mentioned is just some conditioning and training matches for the sides involved. Our advice is just to stick to the match outrights on the games and to take a look at live in-play betting as well. They may well offer you a lot more value.
International Champions Cup Dates
The first game of this summer’s 2018 International Champions Cup is Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund on July 20th. The final one of the matches will be on August 12th when Atletico Madrid take on Inter Milan.
International Champions Cup 2018 Fixtures
July 20th, 2018
Manchester City v Borussia Dortmund
July 21, 2018
Bayern Munich v PSG
July 22, 2018
Liverpool v Borussia Dortmund
July 25th, 2018
Borussia Dortmund v Benfica
Manchester City v Liverpool
Roma v Tottenham
Milan v Manchester United
July 26th, 2018
Atletico Madrid v Arsenal
July 28th, 2018
Arsenal v PSG
Benfica v Juventus
Chelsea v Inter Milan
Manchester United v Liverpool
Bayern Munich v Manchester City
Barcelona v Tottenham
July 30th, 2018
PSG v Atletico Madrid
July 31st, 2018
Tottenham Milan
Barcelona v Roma
August 1st, 2018
Arsenal v Chelsea
Benfica v Lyon
August 4th, 2018
Milan v Lyon
Real Madrid Juventus
Milan v Barcelona
August 7th, 2018
Chelsea v Lyon
Real Madrid v Roma
August 12th
Atletico Madrid v Inter Milan.
Highlight Matches
There are some stand-out matches that are coming up in the 2018 International Champions Cup including a London Derby (which is being played in Dublin) between Arsenal and Chelsea. There is also a big showdown between Manchester United and Liverpool in what is dubbed the North West Derby. That one is being played out in Ann Arbor Michigan.
Manchester City will also be taking on Liverpool on the 25th in East Rutherford as well as going up against Bayern later on in the mouth. Spurs have a cracker against Barcelona in Pasadena on the 28th and Manchester United will battle against Real Madrid on July 31st. Looking down the list there is also a fascinating match up on August 4th between Juventus and Real Madrid. Will Cristiano Ronaldo be lining up against his former club after his big summer move?
International Champions Cup History
This summer-friendly feast really hasn’t found a settled groove yet. None of the previous five editions of this has managed to stay in the same format. There have been changes all the way as more and more interest in this develops. The early editions produced a Champion from the different geographical zones that they were playing in. It was all a bit disorganised though and some teams didn’t even play the same number of matches in some instances.
The first to be crowned winners of the International Champions Cup was Real Madrid in 2013. A year later Manchester got the crown and then it was the turn of PSG for the next two years. For the first, it was Barcelona who won it last summer as Manchester City followed them in second place. The new format is just one big table of the 18 teams and the one with the best record is crowned champions regardless of who and where they play.
International Champions Cup Predictions and Betting Odds
It is hard to know which teams are going to be taking this more seriously than others. The English clubs start their domestic seasons earlier than those on continental Europe so they may be a bit more geared up. We have seen in the past teams start with squads missing key players who then join up later in the tour. With the World Cup having just finished that could well be the case for this summer’s generational Champions Cup.
So again this is about waiting until match day and trying to nail a prediction once you see the lineups. Then you can dip into live in-play betting as well to try and dig around for some extra options to add another level to your International Champions Cup betting. This is some exciting friendly action involving some of the biggest clubs in Europe and it is a nice filler for sure until the new domestic seasons start up properly.
It is not as if you can really look back at the past history of this to try and gain more insights because again, this is all just friendly stuff. But there are those with stronger squads than others such as Manchester City, PSG and Barcelona so you may want to lean towards them being in the frame to be crowned champions. It is just worth looking at in-play betting for your goalscorer markets and goals markets once you see how seriously teams are taking this.
That is the best way to approach International Champions Cup betting odds. Just step by step really. Try to gather as much information as possible. It is also more likely that for some of the big games that we have mentioned above like Manchester United v Liverpool teams will be a little stronger for those big duels.
