European Teams to Take On MLS

Three of Europe’s leading soccer teams -- Chelsea, AC Milan and Real Madrid -- will visit the United States next month for games against Major League Soccer teams, The Times has learned.

Nine-time European champion Real Madrid will play the Galaxy at the Home Depot Center and possibly one other game against a Mexican club, at a site to be determined.

Chelsea, which won the English Premier League title this season, will play D.C. United in Washington. AC Milan, runner-up to Juventus in Italy’s Serie A and beaten by Liverpool in the European Champions League final, will play the Fire at Chicago.

The two visitors will also play each other at a site to be announced.

Exact dates for the matches have yet to be finalized, but they will take place around the time of the MLS All-Star game in the last week of July.

Official announcement of some, if not all, the matches, which signal the beginning of far greater involvement by MLS in international competition, is expected to be made today by the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which operates D.C. United, the Fire and the Galaxy, as well as two other MLS teams.