The MLS-All Stars will face Manchester United on Wednesday night in a match that can be seen on ESPN 2. It is a soccer betting preseason contest for Manchester United as they won’t start the Premier League season until next month. The match is a showcase for the MLS-All Stars although many of them won’t play long on Wednesday night.
Check out the current line for this game at SBG Global.
This is the sixth straight year and the seventh time in the last eight years that the MLS All-Stars will be playing a foreign team in the All-Star game. The matchup against Manchester United sounds appealing but United will have very few of their starters for this match. Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Owen Hargreaves, Ji-sung Park, Michael Owen, Nemanja Vidic and Michael Carrick didn’t even make the trip to Houston. Darren Fletcher and John O’Shea were picked up in Sunday’s match against Kansas City and they may not play. Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes will be two of the few big names that will be playing for Manchester United. It is possible that Javier Hernandez will get his first action for Manchester United in the match against the MLS All-Stars. He scored twice in the World Cup for Mexico and trained with United for the first time on Monday. With the match being played in Houston, Hernandez would be an instant fan favorite. Manchester United is coming off a 2-1 loss on Sunday to Kansas City although the team that United put on the field was nothing like the one they will start the season with.
The crowd at Reliant stadium is going to be big and it is possible the match will be a sellout. The stadium holds 70,000 for soccer so Wednesday’s match would be the largest crowed for an MLS All-Star match since the first All-Star game in 1996.
The MLS All-Stars odds have done very well in the matches against foreign teams. They have defeated Mexico’s Chivas USA, England’s Fulham, Chelsea and West Ham United and Scotland’s Celtic. The only team to beat them was Everton as goalkeeper Tim Howard stole the show last year.
The scheduling of the MLS All-Star game was not well done this year and many of the top players in the world will see only limited action. Los Angeles played a CONCACAF Champions League match on Tuesday so Landon Donovan, Edson Buddle, Omar Gonzalez and Donovan Ricketts may not get more than token appearances. Real Salt Lake’s Kyle Beckerman also willnot play.
