We’re now just a little over a week away from the start of the new Premier League season — though we have to wait until Monday night (the 24th) for the Chelsea match — and that means that it’s now time for the final preparations to be made on the training ground before things get played for realsies. Part of these final preparations is a friendly at the Bridge, tomorrow afternoon against Real Sociedad.
This is a rematch of a preseason friendly from twelve years ago, when José Mourinho was in charge for the second time and would lead the Blues to a Premier League title. (It would then all implode the following season, which is a relevant storyline once again thanks to the recent release of the “Mourinho” documentary on Netflix.)
If we somehow end up wining the title this year as well, we better be playing Real Sociedad every summer from now on.
Date / Time: Saturday, August 15, 2026, 14.00 BST; 9am EDT; 7:30pm IST
Venue: Stamford Bridge, SW6
Forecast: In 2014, we got sideways, driving rain; this time around it should be nice and quite warm
On TV: none (USA/UK); ETB 1 (Spain); elsewhere
Streaming:CFC+ (everywhere except Spain) — £9.99 for just the game of £19.99 for the whole season
Chelsea team news: Everyone who’s anyone is now back, including the last few stragglers from post-World Cup holidays, like Reece James and Enzo Fernández, plus big-money acquisitions Morgan Rogers and Maxence Lacroix. And small-money acquisitions like Jordan Henderson and Pep Chavarría. I’d expect all of them to play, including the Manchester City-linked Enzo. Chelsea had set a hard deadline of Friday evening for any bids for our Vice-captain. None arrived, so he’s now staying for sure (or at least that’s the theory).
It’s been a bit of a mixed bag in terms of results this preseason, but overall, the vibes have been pretty good and some of the football on display has been okay as well. Xabi Alonso seems to be putting his mark on the team, on and off the pitch, and surely that’s a good thing. The squad looks much more balanced than in recent seasons, even as we still need to jettison and a fair bit of deadwood. Our best overall performance was probably against AC Milan last weekend, before we went to Malaysia for a bit of rugby against JDT. Thankfully, everyone seems to be okay after that.
Real Sociedad team news: Like Chelsea, La Real finished 10th last season in the top flight, and like for Chelsea, that was a bit of a disappointment for them. Unlike Chelsea, they did still win a nice shiny trophy, beating Atlético Madrid in the Copa del Rey final. They are managed by Pellegrino Matarazzo, who became the first American (US) coach to win a major European trophy in the process. ‘MERICA!
World Cup champion and local legend Mikel Oyarzabal leads the line for the team. The 29-year-old striker has spent his entire career with the team and is coming off of a career-best season of 15 league goals. He equaled the Spain national team record with five goals at the World Cup, including one in the semifinal against France.
It’s been a quiet summer otherwise, with the squad essentially unchanged from last season.
Previously: The aforementioned friendly from twelve years ago, which was Chelsea first home preseason friendly in nearly a decade, was won by the Blues, 2-0, with Diego Costa scoring twice in the first ten minutes. Diego would make a torrid start to his actual Chelsea career that season, keying our eventual title. While we never played Real Sociedad competitively, we did also have a friendly against them back in 1967. We’ve got history!