[NoSkillz]

Sat. August 2, 2025

Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. Barcelona (Spain)
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK

Our old Champions League rival Barcelona visits Crabble for our last preseason friendly. Interestingly enough, Barca haven’t won their league since 2014/15, a span of eleven years. They are still stacked with talent, although superstar forward Enrique will be turning 31 this October and is finally starting to lose that legendary speed.

We’ll go with a mostly full strength side today. I’m still trying to get chronically injured Arsene Bamba fit but otherwise, the roster is ready for the season. I’ll keep Paul Moses out of the lineup and ready for our Community Shield game next week.

Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - I. Wilke
D - Renato Gaucho, C. Contreras, R. Hamon, S. Loucif
M - A. Bamba, B. Raab, Jose, G. Bolis
S - A. Broomes, Chiquinho

Dover 1 - 1 Barcelona
Goals - Manuel Lugo (7.3)
Assists - Sergio De la Vega (6.9)
Man of the Match - Chris-Michel Bigirimana (Barcelona DC - 7.3)
Other Dover Notables - Rayane Hamon (7.0), Claudio Contreras (7.0)
Attendance - 23,000 (Sell-Out)

We played pretty well but needed an 83rd minute goal from substitute Lugo off a De la Vega corner to pull out a draw. And of course, Arsene Bamba got hurt again. My God, the guy is made of glass.

-- We close out the preseason 7-1-1, with the only loss for a second consecutive year coming to Olympique Lyonnais.

-- Oh JOY. Arsene Bamba suffers a torn hamstring and will miss 2-3 months. We’ve already loaned out third string ML Felix Hernandez for the whole season and I can’t recall him. GREAT. I’ll need to look at bringing in a loan player or else it will be 17 year old newcomer Jonathan Langlet backing up Mads Pedersen. Actually, I can use Rafinha as well so perhaps I’m not in bad shape. DOVER INJURY: Arsene Bamba - Torn Hamstring (2-3 months)



Season Ticket Update

-- We’ve now sold 8153 season ticket packages, already well over last year’s total of 7467. We expect to get up to around 8500 before the season begins.



International Roundup

-- In perhaps his last international game while a member of our squad, GK Manuel Perez backstops Mexico to the Gold Cup title in a 3-1 win over the USA. Perez let in only two goals in eight tournament games and made the Dream Team.



On-Field Leadership

-- We make a slight change to our on-field leadership, making Chiquinho our vice-captain behind Salim Loucif. The role had been filled by backup defender Saber Nasri for the last couple of years but I envision Nasri slipping to fourth on our central defence totem pole behind youngster Mwemere Mutesa so I’d essentially be wasting the vice captain spot if I kept him in the position.



Transfer OUT

-- And just like that, he’s gone. GK Manuel Perez accepts a contract and is granted a work permit, thus completing a whopping £27.5 million transfer to our main rival, Manchester United, the largest transfer in Dover club history. It breaks the former record of £21.5 million for our sale of defender Kostas Zagos to Chelsea a couple years ago.

Perez joined our club in July 2022 from Cruz Azul in Mexico in a modest £3.3 million deal and he was always ear marked as our goalkeeper of the future. He had trouble settling in and it took him two full years to learn how to speak English but his performances were always solid but not necessarily spectacular. He could never really unseat long-time Dover legend Ingo Wilke but finally played more than half our games last year, a bit of a down year by his lofty standards. In the end, there’s not much I can do despite wanting to keep him here - United splashed the cash and Perez takes the loot and runs, as they are paying him £175K per week, a wage I simply can’t compete with. In all, Perez started 69 matches in three years, allowing only 60 goals and notching 33 clean sheets. It’s a sad day but man, that’s a LOT of money. Now, I’ll need to find a capable backup keeper, and quickly at that.



Next Up

-- We head to Wembley to face Manchester United in the Community Shield, hoping to defend our title from last year.