The 'torturous' tours

Coach Wenger (red shirt) suffers from the food poisoning incident of his team in China. Photo: REUTERS

As scheduled, the summer of English clubs is as exciting and bustling as the domestic championship race that begins in August. Not counting friendly matches and occasional tours, there are two extremely notable friendly tournaments taking place in the summer: the ICC Cup and the Premier League Asian Trophy.

ICC Cup 2017 includes 17 European clubs competing in 3 different countries: USA (8), China (6) and Singapore (3). Among them are a series of world-class teams such as Real Madrid, Barca, Bayern Munich, PSG... and 5 English giants: Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham.

The remaining team in the Premier League's "big six" - Liverpool, participates in the Premier League Asia Trophy - a tournament held every two years involving Premier League clubs. This year's Asia Trophy takes place in Hong Kong, and in addition to Liverpool, there are Leicester City, West Brom and Crystal Palace.

Including Tottenham’s friendly against Kitchee SC in Hong Kong, seven of England’s top clubs have set foot in Asia this summer. Past experiences of extreme weather and storms have not seemed to deter Premier League sides. Last year, the Manchester derby was called off in Beijing due to the weather. At the time, manager Jose Mourinho said that “getting the players back safely was the only objective” in describing the terrible weather in Beijing at the time.

Although no matches have been cancelled this summer, the difficulties are increasing. Most recently, the story of food poisoning of the entire Arsenal team before the match against Bayern Munich in Shanghai. Assistant coach Per Mertesacker and Olivier Giroud were so badly poisoned that they could not play, while Theo Walcott, Aaron Ramsey and Sead Kolasinac were also affected physically. The 38oC heat in Shanghai was a cause of the poisoning of the Arsenal players. Even manager Arsene Wenger admitted that he was shocked by this.

Not as bad as Arsenal, Liverpool also had to deal with the weather in Hong Kong - where English football stars were "tortured" by persistent rain and humidity up to 100%. Coach Jurgen Klopp had to cancel a training session in the tournament due to the weather. The weather also made the pitch worse, creating injury concerns for the teams. In the 2013 tournament (also in Hong Kong), Sunderland coach Paolo Di Canio called the stadium "a killer pitch".

Klopp, a coach known for his outspokenness, hinted that he was unhappy with his team's tour. "What can I say? As a coach, I care about the matches, about the quality of the game and things that can affect the game," AFP news agency quoted Klopp as saying.