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Liverpool’s pre-season kicks off in July, with the players expected to return to the club a week or two before heading to Australia for the start of their pre-season tour on July 17th. While he may not be a Liverpool player any longer at that point, Steven Gerrard will be following a similar schedule.
Following a brief summer break, Gerrard will report to the LA Galaxy in July, officially becoming a player at his new club on July 8th, when the MLS transfer window opens. Their first match following that is on the 11th, a home date in the International Champions Cup against Mexico’s Club America.
For those for whom it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet that Gerrard is—or very soon will be—truly, officially, gone, it’s perhaps a date to circle on the calendar. And it does at least mean a bit of football with a Liverpool rooting interest to distract over the summer months, when the transfer rumours become a little much.
"We expect him here before 11 July," Galaxy manager Bruce Arena told the club’s official website. "We haven’t finalised a date yet. He will be here, he’ll get some training in, and by the time that he’s eligible to play he’ll be ready to go."
Along with Steven Gerrard’s California trip, the other main footballing distraction for Liverpool fans this summer will be the Copa America, which runs for a month after kicking off on June 11th. There, Philippe Coutinho and Brazil are Group C favourites over Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela.
