Liverpool and Manchester United are starting preparations for a busy season with major European football clubs returning to the marketing-rich Asian continent for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The two giants of the English Premier League will meet on Tuesday in Bangkok, in the first match of new Dutch manager Erik ten Hag, who will face experienced German Jurgen Klopp.

Liverpool came close to creating a historic quartet of English clubs last season before Manchester City shattered their Premier League hopes and lost the Champions League final to Real Madrid.

For their part, Paris Saint-Germain, which includes Argentine stars Lionel Messi, Brazilian Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, is moving to Japan, ditching its Argentine manager Mauricio Pochettino and replacing him on Tuesday with former Nice manager Christophe Galtier.

And Tottenham will be very welcome in South Korea next week as they include Asia’s top striker Son Heung-min, who shared with Liverpool striker Mohamed Salah of Egypt, the top scorer in the English Premier League last season.

Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Leeds United are flying to Singapore and Australia in an attempt to reunite with their Asian fans after being forced into a ‘quarantine’ as a result of the Corona virus outbreak in the past two years.

“We know the situation has been difficult for our fans around the world because they haven’t seen the team,” said Sebastian Fasel, managing director of PSG Asia-Pacific, whose team plays three matches against clubs from Japan. league.

Liverpool and Manchester United fans will have an unparalleled opportunity to watch the two historic rivals meet in the Thai capital of Bangkok at the 51,000-capacity Rajamangala Stadium.

But many will be disappointed after waking up on Friday to the news that Portuguese attacking star Cristiano Ronaldo is absent from United for “family reasons” amid rumors that he will be leaving the Red Club.

– “The Biggest Game in Asia” –

“This will be the biggest match Asia has ever hosted,” said Asian sports marketing expert Markus Lauer, who arranged for the two teams to travel to Thailand.

“No K-Pop team or any other football club will be more important than these two teams coming here.”

Fans have to spend a lot of money to see the stars of two teams, such as the Egyptian Salah, the Dutch Virgil van Dijk from Liverpool or the Portuguese Bruno Fernandes and Harry Maguire from Manchester United, since the cheapest tickets cost about 140 US dollars.

United fan Bhavit Bangaratanakorn, 27, said he was looking forward to taking pictures with the players at their hotel but would not buy a ticket because it was “too expensive”.

“This is just a friendly match and it does not guarantee that you will see players like Cristiano Ronaldo play the whole match,” he said.

After the match, United will travel to Australia, where they will face Melbourne Victory, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa.

As for Liverpool, they face Crystal Palace in Singapore, while Leeds United and Aston Villa play in the Queensland Champions Cup in Australia alongside local side Brisbane Roar.

Tottenham, which includes the captains of the men’s and women’s national teams of South Korea, in addition to the Spanish Sevilla, will meet in Suwon with a group of players from the South Korean league.

– ‘A great opportunity’ –

Lauer believes that the competition between European clubs, and not just playing with local clubs, means that these will be “competitive matches”: Liverpool and Manchester United will meet in the third stage of the local league, so it’s not far off.

He continued: “If you are a coach or a player, this is a good opportunity to know your situation.”

The clubs are eager to commercialize their Asian tours in an area that Lauer says “still is of paramount importance to any football club in the world”.

It’s true that Saint-Germain is returning to Japan for the first time since 1995, but he has an office in Tokyo and is still active in retail, esports and fashion.

Vassil describes Japan as a “strategic country” where Saint-Germain has six million fans and says the summer tour is “the last part of Basel”.

“Since the launch of our project, Japan has been central to what we wanted to achieve in terms of brand development,” he continued.

He continued, “The front row players will come, not the substitutes, because I’m starting to hear that some fans in Japan are afraid that the star players won’t come.”