The reigning winners of the Champions League are getting into the swing of things in the International Champions Cup, with Real Madrid set to play in Columbus, Ohio as part of the section of the tournament being played in America. It’s Madrid’s first friendly match of the pre-season, and seeing where they stand now should be quite interesting.
Real Madrid vs. PSG 2016 live stream: How to watch International Champions Cup online
A much-changed PSG side have to find themselves against the defending Champions League title holders.
Clive Rose/Getty Images
PSG, though, have already emerged triumphant from their first ICC match, beating Inter Milan over the weekend. They’re a much-changed side from the one we saw last year, though, so how they perform and even how they look on the pitch seems like it could be highly unpredictable. This is going to be a match that teaches us a lot of things, so it will be well worth watching just for that.
What to watch: Real Madrid
While both sides are missing a lot of their top-end talent thanks to post-Euro 2016 recovery vacations, Madrid missing the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Pepe, and Toni Kroos hurts Madrid a lot. James Rodríguez, Luka Modric, and Sergio Ramos are back with the team and will begin training soon, but obviously they won’t be a part of this match. Madrid will have to rely extremely heavily on their depth. That’s not a bad thing at all, though, because they struggled when they had to go to their bench players last season -- getting them minutes now will help prepare them, or help better illustrate positions where they need to spend on reinforcements.
What to watch: Paris Saint-Germain
PSG have undergone some fairly significant changes this summer, losing Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Gregory van der Wiel as well as hiring a new manager in Unai Emery to replace the now-departed Laurent Blanc. With Emery and several intriguing signings coming in -- not all of whom are with the team quite yet thanks to the Euros -- this is going to be a very different PSG side than the one we got used to over the last few years. How they’re going to approach games seems very much up in the air, so seeing them in action against a team like Real Madrid should be quite illuminating. They already beat Inter Milan 3-1 earlier in the ICC with an impressive showing, and we should learn a lot more about this team in this game.
Match Date/Time: Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. ET
Venue: Mapfre Stadium, Columbus, Ohio
TV: ESPN2 (U.S. - English), ESPN Deportes (U.S. - Spanish)
Online: WatchESPN (U.S.)
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