Arsenal Is Coming Back To The United States To Play The MLS All Stars On July 28th

And the 2016 @ATT #MLSAllStar opponent is… https://t.co/r5hdaKxc0U

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) February 11, 2016

YES! LET'S GOOOOOOOO!!! If you haven't figured it out by now, Arsenal is my Premier League club. Been following them closely since 2013, but I've been a distance fan I guess you'd call it. I've had an Arsenal winter hat for a while (shoutout mom for buying that in London) and I named mine of my 3v3 Soccer teams "Arsenal". Even made my number 14 for Thierry Henry whose name I absolutely used to butcher back in the day (you get more cultured with age, so really I'm fine and can take no blame).

 I didn't get to see them when they played in New York (New Jersey really, but don't tell New Yorkers) in 2014. But know that they're playing the MLS All Stars in San Jose on July 28th and the game will be nationally televised, I'll be all over it. The MLS All Stars have been playing European teams regularly since 2005. It's actually been pretty competitive as well. The last two have been 2-1 wins over Tottenham and Bayern Munich. They've beat Chelsea twice before as well. And they've lost to. Roma, Manchester United (twice) and Everton have all beaten on the leagues best in the past.

It's not like the teams have been bringing slouches either. I mean they do, but they bring stars as well. Last year Tottenham started Harry Kane, Eric Dier and Christian Eriksen among others, and sued more good players on. Bayern Munich two years ago rolled out David Alaba, Xherdan Shaqiri and Robert Lewandowski before going down 2-1 in the 70th minute and bringing on Arjen Robben, Thomas Muller, Bastian Schweinsteiger and (again) other very good players. Hell, Landon Donovan scored the game-winner in Manuel Neuer, the best goalkeeper in the world. Seriously, go look at the other games and tell me any of the guest teams played entirely with scrubs. Now, maybe the guys, at least in the early years, took the game lightly and more as a vacation. And maybe there's an agreement between the league and the guest team to play star players. But as we saw the past two years, they do want to win. They may have the mindset that they are playing against inferior soccer players, and to lose would be an embarrassment. Hell, after the 2014 game Bayern's boss Pep Guardiola refused to shake Caleb Porter's hand and wouldn't let his players mingle with the MLSers afterwards.

But here's the thing this year. There's so much going on in terms of international competitions this summer, it'll be hard for Arsenal to field a squad close to full strength. Euro 2016 is June 10 to July 10, Copa America Centenario is June 3 to June 26, and the Olympics are August 5 to August 21. So many players on the roster factor into their national teams that are competing in these events. Players coming back from he first two would maybe need time off after a grueling season and then the competitions after them, and those called into Olympic camps would likely be gone before the All Star Game.

I'll hold out hope we get major stars for the game, but even just seeing Arsene Wenger patrolling the sidelines would be worth it.