In just a few short hours, Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea will swing into our first public action as we take on Western Sydney Wanderers at the massive Sydney Olympic Stadium in Australia’s biggest city. Chelsea have already played a couple behind-closed-doors friendlies back in England, beating Crawley Town and Bromley, but this will be the first time fans will get to see Alonso & Co as well. (Of course, the match is being played at night, local time, so for some of us, it will be in the middle of the night.)
This is the first match of our multi-week Southeast Asia and Australia preseason tour, with matches to follow in Hong Kong, Jakarta, and Iskandar Puteri in Malaysia, after another game in Sydney, against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday. Plenty of opportunities for the squad to gain fitness and familiarity with Alonso’s system — even if several players are still on post-World Cup holidays. Until they return, we will also get to see a few fresh faces from the Academy as bonus.
This game is officially part of the Sydney Super Cup preseason tournament. I’m not sure if there’s a shiny bauble involved.
Date / Time: Tuesday, July 28, 2026, 7:45pm local time; 10:45 BST; 5:45am EDT
Venue: Accor Stadium, Sydney, Australia
Forecast: It’s winter in Australia, though winters are usually quite mild in Sydney
On TV: none; elsewhere
Streaming: Paramount+ (USA), FanCode (India); StarTimes (NGA); CFC+ (UK/int’l) — CFC+ is Chelsea’s new-ish premium(?) streaming service so if your region does not have a rights-holder, you can watch there for £9.99 (or buy all six preseason games for just a little more at £14.99; or subscribe for the whole year for a little bit more at £19.99)
Western Sydney Wanderers team news: WSW were added as an expansion team to the A-League in 2012, and they would win it immediately, in their very first season, followed by an Asian Champions League crown a year later. They have not reached those heights ever since and in fact finished rock bottom of the league last year. But there’s no relegation in the A-League, so they remain a top flight team.
Their squad have undergone a lot of changes since, including the departure of a familiar name in former Newcastle man Ryan Fraser, who joined crosstown rivals Sydney FC in the offseason. But that was not nearly as controversial as WSW poaching at the same time Sydney’s head coach, Ufuk Talay, a move that was called “the most staggering hire in A-League history”. Dra-MA!
Talay’s reign got off to a good start last week, with Wanderers beating lower league Tigers FC, 2-0 in the opening round of the Australia Cup. The team’s biggest star, Brandon Borrello, who played in Germany for several years, set up the first and scored the second himself.
Chelsea team news: All who were able and willing and present have traveled to begin the tour, with 28 players landing in Sydney late last week and getting to work on and off the pitch. They included all first-team players who were not involved in the latter stages of the World Cup, and all players on the fringes of the team not actively being shopped around. We’ve also got several Academy youngsters along for the ride, so hopefully they’ll see some action as well.
As far as new signings, Marco Palestra is here and Geovany Quenda should be joining soon. Unfortunately, Emmanuel Emegha suffered a hamstring injury in the training game against Bromley, and he will miss the tour. It’s not quite clear yet when our World Cup crew, including Morgan Rogers might join — or if they will join the tour at all.
As ever, the focus in these games is fitness, but with Alonso having the entire summer to mold the team in his image, hopefully we’ll see some indication of that happening as well (maybe not right away, but by the end of the preseason).
Previously: This is our first ever match against Western Sydney Wanderers and our first visit to Sydney in over a decade. Last time we were in Australia, in 2018, we were on the west coast in Perth.
