After a chat with a D.C. United official today, we have a few more pieces of information about their upcoming tour of Indonesia. First (and most important), the team is looking to streaming the two matches against Persib Bandung and Arema FC, both of which will be broadcast on one of the largest TV stations in Indonesia. For those of you who are diehard junkies like me, I will take any additional games that I can get. However, the team did stress that nothing has been agreed to yet.
While in Indonesia, the team will do more than just play its two games. These two teams have a broad base of support in the fourth largest country in the world, and so United will be attempting to tap into that support. The team will conduct open training sessions, youth clinics, and coaching clinics. The goal seems to be to try and relate to the community at large and not just to fly in and stay walled off from the country and its citizens. The team is not actively looking for more formalized relations with any organizations in Indonesia, but should an opportunity present itself while they are there, the team would take a look.
And while there is nothing planned yet, this tour seems to be a test run for any future tours; should it go well, there may be movement towards another tour a year or two down the road. This shouldn't surprise anyone, but those sort of postseason/preseason tours are still relatively rare for MLS teams. Premier League teams and Scandinavian teams will often come to the United States in their preseasons, and teams in leagues with a winter break will go to places like Turkey to keep sharp. MLS could be the next league to move in that direction.
More from Black And Red United:
- Michael Seaton called up for the senior Jamaican national team
- Cake or Death? Oh, this'll be fun: LEWIS NEAL
- Filibuster podcast episode 56: A toast to Omar Cummings, the Slayer of the Red Bulls
- The Donnety Award, for D.C. United's most disappointing player
- Cake or Death? It's rookie homegrown attacker Collin Martin's turn on the stage