The pre-season friendly is a strange beast these days. For many bigger clubs, they're dressed up as mini-tournaments and cups, such as the ones that Arsenal have just won. This makes them seem more important than the old pre-season friendly that a club like Arsenal would have played against perhaps Barnet or Hendon. They're much higher-profile and played against much better sides. They're given television coverage and global exposure. You knew when Manchester United turned out against a little Edinburgh team called Spartans - as they did in 2011 - that it was just a kind of training session. It wasn't on global television. But the Barclays Asia Trophy of Glorious Crushing Capitalism and...
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