Chelsea Set to Play PSG in Yankee Stadium This July
When the Hotel Chelsea was closed for renovations last year, Tom Leonard opened his article about it in the Daily Mail by highlighting the hotel’s famous (and often infamous) history, writing: “Every room has a story, most of them memorable and few of them printable.”
Sid Vicious (or someone else, he can’t remember) killed his girlfriend there. Dylan Thomas killed himself there (so they say). Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and countless others killed their brain cells there.
But that was then. Both the Hotel Chelsea and the neighborhood from which it takes its name have been renovated, in a way—either by volition or by the riptide of what economists call “progress”.
And indeed, Chelsea, the football club, has similarly undergone transformation as of late, perhaps for the same reasons. Under new leadership, and rejuvenated by a string of “heroic” performances and, it must be said, some lucky bounces (cf. Andy Carroll in the FA Cup final), Chelsea has stormed back in a major way. From mid-level mediocrity and the verge of a meltdown to a possible Champions League and FA Cup double, the Blues have quickly thrust themselves back into the limelight.
No better time, then, for them to travel to New York. There’s no telling if people from Chelsea will actually take the hour-or-so train trip to the new Yankee Stadium to see them play Paris Saint-Germain on July 22nd, as part of the World Football Challenge, but if they do, they’ll get to witness the first ever football match played on this patch of grass.
PSG is also a team on the rise (they’re in first place in their league’s table, currently), which gives this “exhibition” match a chance to actually live up to the definition of the term. Mark your calendars and stock your fridges, folks.
