The US Tour: Did you know?

The countdown is on for Barça's tour of the United States with four friendlies in San Francisco (Juventus), Los Angeles (Arsenal), Dallas (Real Madrid) and finally Las Vegas (AC Milan). There are ten days to go and so here are ten things you will need to know to get you in the mood:

1. FC Barcelona first went to the United States in 1937. They played four games in New York, winning 4-2 against Brooklyn Hispano, 4-3 against New York, 2-0 against the US national team and 3-0 against a Hebrew XI (0-3).

2. It was 32 years before Barça returned, but since then they have played 38 times in 13 different visits, winning 25 of those games.

3. The US, together with Canada and Mexico, is hosting the next World Cup, and three of the stadiums will be hosting games in 2026, namely the Levi's Stadium (San Francisco), the SoFi Stadium (Los Angeles) and the AT&T Stadium (Dallas).

4. The first opponent, Juventus, is the team Barça have faced most times in America. This will be the sixth such meeting, which all started back in 1969 when Barça won both games 3-2 and 1-0. They also played in 2003 in Boston (2-2), in New Jersey in 2017 (a 2-1 defeat) and last summer in Dallas (2-2).

5. Ousmane Dembélé tends to hit early form in the US. He has scored in four of the last five games that Barça has played there. He was on target last summer against Inter Miami, Juventus and the New York Red Bulls, and in 2019, he found the net against Napoli in Michigan.

6. Barça will play Arsenal in Los Angeles, where the biggest MLS crowd of all time, 82,110, saw LA Galaxy play Los Angeles FC.

7. The SoFi Stadium in LA is the only one that Barça has never visited before. It's the home of the Los Angeles Rams in NFL and will be hosting games at the forthcoming World Cup and Olympic Games.

8. Barça have played five friendlies over the years against Arsenal, and have won them all, but this will be the first on American soil.

9. This is the second year in a row that there's a Clásico in the US, and the third since 2017. Barça and Madrid first met in Miami, winning 3-2 thanks to goals from Messi, Rakitic and Piqué. And last year in Las Vegas, the only goal in a 1-0 win was scored by Raphinha.

10. Milan will the last team Barça plays and it will be in the same Las Vegas stadium that hosted the game with Real Madrid a year ago. In two previous games with Milan in America, Barça won 2-1 in Washington in 2003 and lost 1-0 in 2018 in Santa Clara.