5 reasons why pre-season actually matters: a club hierarchy POV

Welcome to The Tap-Inn. Where you can tap in to the world of soccer with me, your Irish Tap-Inn bartender, Joe. 🍻

Yesterday, County Mayo lifted the All-Ireland Gaelic Football title, the Sam Maguire trophy.

I’m well aware this is a soccer newsletter, but 75 years of hurt (including 11 final losses) being released all at once with the most dramatic sporting commentary you might ever hear does not get more emotional than this.

On tap today, we’re returning to our pre-World Cup menu newsletter format. We’re pouring over:

• ✈️Pre-season from a club's perspective (on Friday we'll flip it, covering a player's perspective)

• 💰 The $156 million Englishman

• 🔄 Why five of the big six have new managers

Let’s pour.

🥃 TOP SHELF

Pre-season: 5 things it actually means for the club

As anyone who has taken over as a new owner of a bar will know, reopening the doors ready for business ain’t as simple as just pulling open the curtains and unlocking the door.

You check the taps, the lines, the coolers. Make sure the system works. You bring in staff, drill procedures, restock every bottle. Only then do you flip the sign.

“And soccer’s pre-season works the same way?”

Bingo. Except in soccer, the stakes are higher — if you mess it up, your business fails in front of 60,000 people on a Saturday.

Right now, every Premier League club is rebuilding their own businesses for the nine months of relentless soccer in the season that lies ahead.

1. Transfer Window Shopping

The summer transfer window opened July 1. Clubs have been moving pieces all month. A new center-back here, a young winger there, maybe a veteran midfielder to add experience. Pre-season is where these signings actually learn what they've signed up for.

A £50 million defender has never played alongside his new partner. Doesn't know when the keeper comes off his line. Doesn't understand the offside trap. Pre-season is where he figures it out. Friendlies are practice without consequence. By Gameweek 1, he needs to be integrated.

“Cool. And a transfer window again is?…”

I’ve got you covered. And if you’re also wondering why some players are going for literally hundreds of millions of dollars, we’ve got an explainer of that on tap as well.

2. New Coaches and New Signings

Chelsea’s new head coach Xabi Alonso arrived on July 1st with plenty of items on his to-do list:

• teach a squad that's been playing a different style of soccer under the previous regime

• build rapport with 30+ players he’s never even met.

• generate some team chemistry between his new signings and the existing panel, e.g. between his freshly inked $60 million right back and the rest of his defense

• do all of this with 15+ nationalities who don’t all speak the same language

Pre-season is where he figures it all out.

3. Squad Depth and Competition

Pre-season is a trial where every player is auditioning for minutes during friendlies (warm-up / exhibition games).

A young winger gets 70 minutes and suddenly he's dangerous. A veteran starter plays 45 and looks labored. Suddenly there's a question mark.

Clubs answer their squad depth questions during the summer months: Who's the backup left-back? Can the young center-half handle it? Is the backup striker ready? Finding the correct answers now determine whether you win the league or finish 8th when injuries hit.

4. Tour Economics

Chelsea is in Sydney right now. Next week Hong Kong. After that Jakarta. It looks mad, but it's intentional.

“Let me guess, money talks?”

Precisely. Each stop is a revenue opportunity.

Ticket sales, merchandise, sponsorship activations. Chelsea supporters in Sydney and Hong Kong don't get to see them play at home. This tour reaches them. That's millions in revenue from friendlies that look meaningless on paper.

But there's another angle: global fanbase expansion. A kid in Jakarta watches Chelsea play and becomes a supporter for life. That's a future shirt buyer, a future streaming subscriber, a future customer. Pre-season tours plant seeds worldwide.

Check out every club’s pre-season tour here.

5. Media Work & Content: The Behind-the-Scenes Machine

While the players are training, the club's media department is working overtime. New kit launches. Signing interviews. Squad photos for the website. Content for the club's TV channel.

Every big club has their own media operation now. Documentary-style content, behind-the-scenes access, player interviews, tactical breakdowns. New signings talking about their dreams. Managers explaining their philosophy. Young players getting their first real exposure.

It all feeds the club's ecosystem—YouTube, the official app, social media. It keeps fans engaged during the quiet summer weeks and builds hype for August 21.

So that’s everything from a club POV. On Friday I’ll be bringing you the ins and outs of pre-season from a player’s perspective.

🗞️ THIS WEEK IN SOCCER

Premier League countdown: 25 days

Three weeks from kickoff and the friendlies are ramping up. If you've been wondering what the big boys have been doing, here's the short version:

• Liverpool 4-2 Sunderland (Nashville, USA)

• Arsenal 3-0 MK Dons (London, England)

• Tottenham 2-0 Auckland FC (New Zealand)

• Leeds 2-3 Wrexham (Florida, USA)

• Manchester United 5-0 Rosenborg (Norway)

Welcome to July soccer, where results don't matter and the fixtures are basically an expensive vacation with a ball attached.

What matters? How teams look. Arsenal's sharp. Man United's clicking. Some squads are still finding their feet.

Messi avoids MLS hammer

Inter Miami won 1-0 over CF Montreal over the weekend. The league's restart after the World Cup break has been tighter defensively than the first half, with teams looking sharper and the standings still very much in flux.

In other news, the MLS All-Star Game is Wednesday in Charlotte against Liga MX. Lionel Messi is set to miss the MLS All-Star Game for the second season running, but this time will escape a suspension. Small mercy after last year's drama.

Tickets are still on sale — grab em here.

Who’s in charge?

The Premier League's big boys went all-in this summer, with 5 of the “Big 6” having confirmed new head coaches in recent months. Arsenal and Mikel Arteta have never felt smugger.

• Chelsea — Xabi Alonso arrives on a four-year contract.

• Manchester United — Michael Carrick gets a two-year deal. Time to prove the interim run wasn't a fluke.

• Liverpool — Andoni Iraola in from Bournemouth. Two-year contract. Arne Slot sacked after a brutal second season.

• Manchester City — Enzo Maresca takes over from Pep Guardiola on a three-year contract. City's first era without Pep since 2016.

• Tottenham — Roberto De Zerbi was appointed with just 7 games to go to rescue them from relegation and now gets his proper pre-season.

See also:why soccer coaches are always getting fired

🔄 THE TRANSFER TAP-IN

So the World Cup is over, that means there's not much soccer news for the next couple of weeks until the club season starts again, right Joe?

Wrong.

The World Cup was actually disrupting one of the most exciting times of the year for soccer fans: The Transfer Window.

TLDR: The Summer Transfer Window is a two-to-three month period where soccer clubs are allowed to buy and sell players. There's also a January window, but most clubs prefer doing business in summer since they get a full pre-season to bed players in and build a plan for the coming year.

So while we don't have many big games over the next couple of weeks, big transfers are a'plenty.

Biggest deals so far

$1.3 billion would buy you about 160 million pints of Guinness at the Tap-Inn.

Funnily enough, that's also the exact amount Premier League clubs have spent on players this transfer window alone — and we've still got over a month left.

The record for the most expensive British player ever has been broken twice this month. First it was Elliot Anderson's move from Nottingham Forest to Man City for $155m — only for that to get broken days later by Morgan Rogers leaving Aston Villa for Chelsea for a staggering $156m. Rogers is the most expensive British player of all time. For now.

Tottenham Hotspur, who are famously frugal, must've found the credit card that fell down the back of their couch:

• Sandro Tonali, Newcastle → Tottenham — $123m

• Mateus Fernandes, West Ham → Tottenham — $113m

• Jan Paul van Hecke, Brighton → Tottenham — $69m

And they’re not finished yet.

Other big transfers:

• Anthony Gordon, Newcastle → Barcelona — $92m (nobody saw this one coming)

• Crysencio Summerville, West Ham → Al Hilal — $73m. West Ham let him walk for a hefty Saudi payday; Summerville reportedly took the $300k-a-week after tax and didn't think twice.

• Youri Tielemans, Aston Villa → Man Utd — $47m. Villa didn’t want to sell. Unfortunately for them, Tielemans had a release clause (see Quickfire below), so United triggered it.

Want to know why clubs are willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a single player? Check out Why a soccer player can cost over $250m.

MLS transfer roundup

Arguably the best striker of his generation, Robert Lewandowski, joined Chicago Fire. Antoine Griezmann joined Orlando City. Ex-Manchester United star Casemiro joined Inter Miami. All three walked in on free transfers this month.

The biggest actual transfer fee paid in MLS this window? $10m, New York City FC for Swiss winger Bénie Traoré.

So: three of the best players in the world of the last 10 years arrive for nothing, and the one player the MLS actually paid real money for is someone most fans couldn't pick out of a lineup.

Also developing:

Darwin Núñez just tore up his Al-Hilal contract after one miserable season, making him a free agent again barely a year after leaving Liverpool. Atlanta United are in talks. This would be a huge coup for MLS — at 27, Núñez should be entering his prime.

The women's record has been broken, apparently

Felicia Schröder's move from BK Häcken to Real Madrid, for a 19-year-old Swedish striker who scored 30 goals last season, is being called the biggest fee ever paid for a female footballer.

Chelsea reportedly bid $1.6m and still lost the race. Real Madrid won it anyway, for a fee nobody will confirm. Häcken's own spokesperson told Reuters it's higher than the previous record — and then declined to say by how much.

📝 ASK JOE

"Why do clubs put so much effort into promoting their new jerseys?" — Annie, Portland

A top global club can generate over €2 million to €3 million in direct retail sales on the very first day of a new kit launch, while elite clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona pull in €150 million to €277 million annually across total yearly merchandise and licensing agreements.

Famously, when PSG signed Neymar from Barcelona for a world-record €222 million ($264m), they generated €1 million in shirt sales on his very first day.

Sounds crazy but when you zoom in on the numbers, it all starts to make sense.

Got a question yourself? Just reply to this email or drop me a line at hello@thetap-inn.com.

🔥 QUICKFIRE

Sound like a regular

Phrase: Release clause

Origin: Rooted in Spanish labor law — a 1985 royal decree that requires every professional contract in Spain to include one, as a legal protection so clubs can't trap players indefinitely.

Definition: A fixed buyout price written into a player's contract. Any club willing to pay that exact number can sign the player — no negotiation, no permission needed from the selling club.

Usage: "United didn't even have to negotiate. Tielemans had a release clause, they paid it, done deal."

On this day — July 27, 1930

Uruguay 6, Yugoslavia 1.

The first-ever World Cup, semi-final, Estadio Centenario in Montevideo. Uruguay went on to win the whole thing three days later, but this game's got the story: One of the host nation's goals reportedly went in after the ball rolled out of play near the touchline and a policeman standing there just... booted it back on. Referee waved play on like nothing happened.

Yugoslavia had already had a goal chalked off nine minutes earlier. Home advantage has never been so literal.

Last call

Arsenal dropped their 2026/27 away kit on Friday, and it's the "bruised banana" again — the cult 1991-93 design, this time in navy instead of the original yellow zig-zag. A bruised banana with the yellow taken out is really just... a banana. But I’m sick of arguing with Arsenal fans, so they can have this one.

That's the bell, folks. Drink up.