First stage of the trip takes in the 'Audi Summer Tour'

A big reunion at Säbener Straße! FC Bayern’s pre-season preparations got off to a busy start this morning when the double winners' first-team players underwent their medicals and performance diagnostics tests, whilst Vincent Kompany and his coaching staff gathered the players from the reserves and the FCB youth teams on the pitch to outline their tasks for the training sessions over the coming days. New reserves team coach, Dante, was also present.

“It’s always a very special feeling when a team heads into a new season,” said board member for sport Max Eberl, “we’ll now start preparing for the matches on the ‘Audi Summer Tour’ in Jeju and Hong Kong through our first training sessions at Säbener Straße and next week’s training camp at the Tegernsee. These will be an early highlight – firstly, because the bulk of our squad for the new season will be together for the first time, and secondly, because we saw just last summer at the Club World Cup how spending time together helps a team move forward.”

The matches against Red & Gold partner club Jeju SK in South Korea on 4 August and Europa League winners Aston Villa on 7 August in Hong Kong should then provide some initial insights: The German World Cup participants, such as Manuel Neuer, Joshua Kimmich, Jonathan Tah, Aleks Pavlović and new signing Nathaniel Brown, will be back on the pitch for FC Bayern in Asia for the first time alongside Minjae Kim in his home match, as well as Luis Díaz, Hiroki Ito, Konrad Laimer and Josip Stanišić.

However, ahead of the first stage of the pre-season tour, the schedule already includes two highlights: the first of two friendlies will take place at SV Wehen Wiesbaden on Saturday (15:30 CEST), followed by a game against SV Rottach-Egern at Tegernsee on 30 July (18:00 CEST). Both matches will be broadcast by the German champions’ club media HERE; the match against Rottach will be available to watch free-to-air.