Friendly today, Football on TV

Now, there are 40 Friendly live televised matches and 20 TV channels will broadcast each and every one of them. The next match you will be able to enjoy is Estrela - Celtic and it will be played next 12 July 2025 at 12:00 televised by Celtic TV.

A friendly match that does not influence the official competitions or involves a large amount of financial prize. Matches in this category are generally used to physically prepare players, build chemistry between teammates on the pitch, and help coaches work on their tactics in a more competitive setting than training.

In the early days of football, they were the most common type of game. A trend that began to change with the development of the Football League of England in 1888. Most countries already have established national tournaments in league and cup formats, as regional formats for lower-level teams. The friendly has lost a lot of prestige since then.

Before the start of each season, most teams play several games of this type as part of the preseason. They are considered non-competitive matches and are used for footballers to achieve the necessary physical shape after a long period of rest. In some cases, the official rules are modified to give more options to the coaches, for example, that there is no limit number of substitutions or that there are no yellow or red cards. These duels are common between clubs that are geographically close to each other.

To make it easier to organize the schedule and group teams together, some organizations set up short tournaments with incentives to attract the best clubs on the planet. Some of the highlights each summer are the International Champions Cup, the Emirates Cup or the Teresa Herrera Trophy. Sometimes these events can be sponsored, broadcast live, and even have a trophy for the champion.

The national teams also play a friendly in preparation for the qualifying phase or before the final phase of the big tournaments. They are essential to prepare, since they have fewer opportunities to train together. These are usually contested throughout the season, causing conflicts between federations and clubs due to the high risk of injury to players. The caps and goals from these matches are added to the statistics and may affect the FIFA ranking of each country.

In addition to these events, there are other types of friendlies such as All-Star, which bring together the best players in a competition, meetings to raise funds to help in the event of a natural disaster in an area or to an NGO and tribute matches to footballers who have left their mark on a club or in the world of football.