{"id":715020,"date":"2026-07-28T08:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T08:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715020\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T08:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T08:30:18","slug":"western-sydney-wanderers-vs-chelsea-friendly-preview-team-news-how-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/715020\/","title":{"rendered":"Western Sydney Wanderers vs. Chelsea, Friendly: Preview, team news, how to watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

In just a few short hours, Xabi Alonso\u2019s Chelsea will swing into our first public action as we take on Western Sydney Wanderers at the massive Sydney Olympic Stadium in Australia\u2019s biggest city. Chelsea have already played a couple behind-closed-doors friendlies back in England, beating Crawley Town and Bromley, but this will be the first time fans will get to see Alonso & Co as well. (Of course, the match is being played at night, local time, so for some of us, it will be in the middle of the night.)<\/p>\n

This is the first match of our multi-week Southeast Asia and Australia preseason tour, with matches to follow in Hong Kong, Jakarta, and Iskandar Puteri in Malaysia, after another game in Sydney, against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday. Plenty of opportunities for the squad<\/a> to gain fitness and familiarity with Alonso\u2019s system \u2014 even if several players are still on post-World Cup holidays. Until they return, we will also get to see a few fresh faces from the Academy as bonus.<\/p>\n

This game is officially part of the Sydney Super Cup<\/a> preseason tournament. I\u2019m not sure if there\u2019s a shiny bauble involved.<\/p>\n

Date \/ Time: Tuesday, July 28, 2026, 7:45pm local time; 10:45 BST; 5:45am EDT
Venue: Accor Stadium, Sydney, Australia
Forecast: It\u2019s winter in Australia, though winters are usually quite mild in Sydney<\/p>\n

On TV: none; elsewhere<\/a>
Streaming: Paramount+ (USA), FanCode (India); StarTimes (NGA); CFC+ (UK\/int\u2019l) \u2014 CFC+<\/a> is Chelsea\u2019s new-ish premium(?) streaming service so if your region does not have a rights-holder, you can watch there for \u00a39.99 (or buy all six preseason games for just a little more at \u00a314.99; or subscribe for the whole year for a little bit more at \u00a319.99)<\/p>\n

\"CANBERRA,<\/a><\/p>\n

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA – JULY 22: The wanderers celebrate with their fans after the Australia Cup round of 32 match between Tigers FC and Western Sydney Wanderers FC at McKellar Park on July 22, 2026 in Canberra, Australia. (Photo by Mark Nolan\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Western Sydney Wanderers team news: WSW were added as an expansion team to the A-League in 2012, and they would win it finish top of the table immediately (though not the playoffs), in their very first season, followed by an Asian Champions League crown a year later. They have not reached those heights ever since and in fact finished rock bottom of the league last year. But there\u2019s no relegation in the A-League, so they remain a top flight team.<\/p>\n

Their squad have undergone a lot of changes since, including the departure of a familiar name in former Newcastle man Ryan Fraser, who joined is set to join(?) crosstown rivals Sydney FC in the offseason. But that was not nearly as controversial as WSW poaching at the same time Sydney\u2019s head coach, Ufuk Talay, in a move that was called \u201cthe most staggering hire in A-League history\u201d<\/a>. Dra-MA!<\/p>\n

Talay\u2019s reign got off to a good start last week, with Wanderers beating lower league Tigers FC, 2-0 in the opening round of the Australia Cup. The team\u2019s biggest star, Brandon Borrello, who played in Germany for several years, set up the first and scored the second himself.<\/p>\n

\"SYDNEY,<\/a><\/p>\n

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – JULY 27: Manager Xabi Alonso of Chelsea during a training session at Sky Park on July 27, 2026 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Darren Walsh\/Chelsea FC via Getty Images) Chelsea FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Chelsea team news: All who were able and willing and present have traveled to begin the tour, with 28 players<\/a> landing in Sydney late last week and getting to work on and off the pitch. They included all first-team players who were not involved in the latter stages of the World Cup, and all players on the fringes of the team not actively being shopped around. We\u2019ve also got several Academy youngsters along for the ride, so hopefully they\u2019ll see some action as well.<\/p>\n

As far as new signings, Marco Palestra is here and Geovany Quenda should be joining soon. Unfortunately, Emmanuel Emegha suffered a hamstring injury in the training game against Bromley, and he will miss the tour. It\u2019s not quite clear yet when our World Cup crew, including Morgan Rogers might join \u2014 or if they will join the tour at all.<\/p>\n

As ever, the focus in these games is fitness, but with Alonso having the entire summer to mold the team in his image, hopefully we\u2019ll see some indication of that happening as well (maybe not right away, but by the end of the preseason).<\/p>\n

Previously: This is our first ever match against Western Sydney Wanderers and our first visit to Sydney in over a decade. Last time we were in Australia, in 2018, we were on the west coast in Perth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In just a few short hours, Xabi Alonso\u2019s Chelsea will swing into our first public action as we…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[29456,59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-715020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-chelsea-fc-friendlies","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}