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One of the world's most-recognizable soccer clubs now has a summertime stopover scheduled in Utah.
Real Salt Lake will host an upcoming international friendly match against Italian Serie A giants Inter Milan on Tuesday, July 19 — the first European club to ever face RSL at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy.
Winners of 18 Serie A league titles and three UEFA Champions League crowns, Inter Milan will utilize its friendly at Rio Tinto Stadium as a tune-up for the upcoming International Champions Cup tournament, which features 10 of the best teams in Europe touring the U.S. this summer.
"We were looking for a way to treat our fans to something that they haven't been treated to in quite some time," RSL general manager Craig Waibel told the Tribune. "Obviously, Inter's looking for a game on their tour over here. The dominoes kind of fell all in the right direction and it worked out."
For RSL, the deal should serve as the most notable friendly match scheduled in the Beehive State since the club hosted Real Madrid in a record-selling exhibition in front of over 40,000 fans at Rice-Eccles Stadium back in 2006. In July 2007, RSL hosted Everton FC of the English Premier League and Argentine powerhouse Boca Juniors a few days later.
Most recently, RSL hosted Liga MX franchise Club Tijuana in an August 2014 match that ended in a 1-1 draw.
Talks with Inter Milan began about eight weeks ago, Waibel said. RSL will pay the Italian club an appearance fee as is protocol for clubs hosting friendly matches, but Waibel didn't specify the amount.
"There's always some offset of costs for these games," he said. "To Milan's credit, they were very interested in playing this game, so they made it really easy on us to make this happen."
Inter Milan has won 30 domestic trophies, but hasn't won the Serie A title since 2009-2010. That same year, Inter completed its first-ever treble, also winning UEFA Champions League as well as the Coppa Italia. Over the years, Inter has been home to superstars like Samuel Eto'o, Hernán Crespo, Luis Figo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Diego Milito, Wesley Sneijder and Javier Zanetti.
It's unclear what the Inter Milan roster will look like exactly come late July as the summer transfer window opens two weeks earlier. Inter currently features Argentine stars Rodrigo Palacio, Mauro Icardi and Éver Banega. Inter also has Brazilians Felipe Melo and Miranda as well as Chilean star Gary Medel. Italian Roberto Mancini returned to for his second stint as the club's manager in 2014. Mancini previously spent five seasons at Manchester City, highlighted by its first Premier League title in 44 years back in 2012.
"To play against big players, it's like a challenge for you," said RSL midfielder Javier Morales. "Even if it's a friendly, it's nice to play against them."
Inter faces Paris Saint-Germain in its first match of the International Champions Cup in Eugene, Ore., on July 24. Six days later, the club faces Bayern Munich in Charlotte, N.C. Six weeks away from the friendly, RSL is currently exploring options for televising the match against Inter Milan, according to an RSL team spokesman.
"For us, it's multileveled," Waibel said. "It's a wonderful experience for our players, but also for our fan base. Let's be honest, this is an amazing team. We haven't seen a lot of these in Utah."
The friendly will further cramp RSL's July schedule that already has six regular-season matches slated. The match against Inter will be the club's fourth in 10 days. RSL hosts the Montreal Impact on July 9 before hitting the road at Western Conference foe Vancouver Whitecaps on July 13. Three days later, RSL hosts the New England Revolution on July 16 in Sandy.
"We said, 'Who doesn't want this game?' " Waibel explained. "We're not going to play exhausted players, we're going to be able to use our full roster and they're going to bring a full roster of players. We evaluated the game itself, and we did a list of pros and cons, and frankly, the only con was it's a busy month. Everything else was a positive."
Defender Tony Beltran said hosting a team the caliber of Inter Milan should be a treat for the fans, and it's an added bonus for the players.
"They're one of the most historic teams in Italy and really Europe," Beltran said, "so I'm excited about playing them."
Twitter: @chriskamrani —
Real Salt Lake vs. Inter Milan
P International club friendly
Date • Tuesday, July 19
Kickoff • 8 p.m.
Location • Rio Tinto Stadium, Sandy