Juventus’ friendly canceled due to Barcelona players having ‘viral gastroenteritis’

Just as they did a summer ago, Juventus arrived in the United States about 24 hours before their first friendly stateside was set to kick off. Unlike this time last summer, they won’t actually have a game to play during the third weekend of July — and it’s nothing of their own doing.

Barcelona announced about eight hours before kickoff in Santa Clara (not San Francisco) that they have canceled their friendly to begin the Soccer Champions Tour against Juventus because “significant part of the blaugrana squad has a viral gastroenteritis.” That means Juve is suddenly down to just two games in the U.S., the first of which will come on Thursday, July 27, against rival AC Milan in Los Angeles.

Barca, unlike Juve, had been in the U.S. for four days before Saturday night’s friendly at the stadium in which the San Francisco 49ers call home.

If Juve were to do things like they did a year ago when they played their first friendly in Las Vegas against Mexican side Chivas then they would have flown to Los Angeles after the game and made that their base camp for much of the United States tour. The only difference between this summer and last other than the fact that Juve’s down to just two friendlies to play is that they will conclude their tour in Florida rather than in Texas.

In place of the friendly, Juventus have announced that they will hold an open training session at Levi’s Stadium at 6:30 p.m. local time. Juve didn’t take part in a training session Friday evening as had previously been planned due to their late arrival into the Bay Area.