{"id":19975,"date":"2026-07-22T09:52:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=19975"},"modified":"2026-07-22T09:52:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T09:52:49","slug":"xabi-alonsos-stamford-bridge-debut-confirmed-as-extra-chelsea-pre-season-fixture-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=19975","title":{"rendered":"Xabi Alonso&#8217;s Stamford Bridge debut confirmed as extra Chelsea pre-season fixture announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<h2 class=\"LeadText_lead-text__wd_PA __className_168de5\" data-testid=\"leadtext\">Chelsea will play a pre-season friendly on August 15 at Stamford Bridge with Xabi Alonso set to be unveiled to his new supporters<\/h2>\n<p><button type=\"button\" class=\"SlideViewerButton_slide-viewer-button__BDJoG\" aria-label=\"Open image viewer\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-controls=\"image-lightbox\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"ImageEmbed_image-embed__0T8WX ImageEmbed_image-lead__Ti3qQ\" data-testid=\"leadimage\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-articleid=\"34284986\">\n<div class=\"ImageEmbed_image-container__2AIQm\">\n<figure class=\"Figure_figure__Uce4f\" style=\"--figure-aspect-ratio:1.5\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Xabi Alonso poses for a photograph after his first press conference as Chelsea manager\" loading=\"eager\" sizes=\"(max-width: 508px) 508px, (max-width: 615px) 615px, 1200px\" src=\"https:\/\/i2-prod.football.london\/article34284986.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1200f\/0_Xabi-Alonso.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i2-prod.football.london\/article34284986.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s508\/0_Xabi-Alonso.jpg 508w, https:\/\/i2-prod.football.london\/article34284986.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s615\/0_Xabi-Alonso.jpg 615w, https:\/\/i2-prod.football.london\/article34284986.ece\/ALTERNATES\/s1200f\/0_Xabi-Alonso.jpg 1200w\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"ImageCaption_caption__j7HRu\" data-testid=\"image-caption\">\n<p aria-label=\"Xabi Alonso poses for a photograph after his first press conference as Chelsea manager\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">Xabi Alonso poses for a photograph after his first press conference as Chelsea manager<cite aria-label=\"Image: Darren Walsh\/Chelsea FC via Getty Images\" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-credit__wlx1W\" data-testid=\"caption-credit\">(Image: Darren Walsh\/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<p><\/button><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Xabi Alonso will meet the Stamford Bridge crowd for the first time on August 15 (2pm kick-off) with Chelsea playing a pre-season friendly against Spanish side Real Sociedad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The Blues fly out to Sydney later this week to begin a four-country tour of Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Malaysia. Alonso and his new squad are set to arrive back in the UK on August 10\/11 &#8211; a few days before they welcome La Real to SW6.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Alonso was on Sociedad&#8217;s books for around five years from 1999 until 2004, where he made 114 league appearances, before he moved to Liverpool. The 44-year-old Spaniard then returned to La Real&#8217;s &#8216;B&#8217; side to coach them for around three years before making the big move to take over at Bayer Leverkusen &#8211; which proved to be the launchpad of Alonso&#8217;s coaching career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\"><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">FOLLOW OUR CHELSEA FB PAGE! <\/strong><strong class=\"Strong_strong__e2x35\">Latest Blues news, analysis and much more via our dedicated Facebook page<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">On August 15, it will be Alonso&#8217;s first opportunity to meet his adoring supporters at Stamford Bridge, just over a week before Chelsea get their Premier League season underway against Fulham at Craven Cottage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Alonso will be hoping to have a few more signings through the door by the time his home debut comes around. Morgan Rogers will certainly be one of them, with the Aston Villa midfielder signing a long-term contract to join the Blues for a fee understood to be \u00a3117million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh\" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Chelsea are also advancing in their pursuit of Crystal Palace defender Maxence Lacroix. Blues sources are optimistic a deal with their London rivals can be struck for the France international to move to the Bridge on a long-term basis.<\/p>\n<section aria-busy=\"true\" aria-label=\"Loading poll\" class=\"Poll_poll-container__66GSR\"\/><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea will play a pre-season friendly on August 15 at Stamford Bridge with Xabi Alonso&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}