Aston Villa to face Minnesota United during 2019 pre-season

American Villans rejoice! Aston Villa will challenge MLS side Minnesota United in the 2019/2020 pre-season.

In a continued effort to build Aston Villa support globally, the club, Tuesday, announced it would head to the United States for part of the 2019/2020 pre-season.

The site? Beautiful new Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The opponent? Third-year Major League Soccer club Minnesota United.

Below is the official release from Aston Villa Football Club:

The match will take place on Wednesday, July 17th which is right in the middle of the MLS calendar. The game kicks-off at 7 p.m. local time. According to the Villa site, Dean Smith already traveled and toured the facilities.

For the past however many seasons Villa have been quiet during pre-season training. Most trips included a warmer weather climate like Portugal supplemented with several friendlies in and around the Birmingham area with smaller clubs.

Minnesota certainly isn’t warmer, but it does give the club an opportunity to expand commercially. Most notably, Minneapolis/St. Paul is the second-closest MLS franchise to Wes Edens’ NBA team, the Milwaukee Bucks (Chicago Fire are the closest geographically). With a capacity of 20,000, Allianz Field should be just about sold-out for the two clubs’ encounter. If you’re in the U.S. and looking to go, Villa announced they would sell ticket and travel packages at a later date.

Colombian attacker Darwin Quintero is the club’s star player with three goals and three assists through five matches. Minnesota do not have many names that would be too familiar with English crowds, but former Sunderland goalkeeper Vito Mannone is the club’s No. 1.

Are you looking to head to Minnesota this summer? Excited Villa are back in the states? Let us know!