'Iconic stadium, amazing experience' - Ben on the Rose Bowl
Fri 27 July 2018, 16:19|Tottenham Hotspur
Ben Davies will step back onto familiar turf in America on Saturday – and it’s one of the most famous sporting venues in the world.
The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Los Angeles, hosts the second of our three International Champions Cup matches (ICC) against La Liga champions Barcelona on Saturday (kick-off 8.05pm local/4.05am Sunday UK) having kicked-off our 2018 Tour with a 4-1 win against AS Roma in San Diego on Wednesday night.
Opened in 1922, the Rose Bowl is the annual home for US college football's (NCAA) Rose Bowl Game between the champions of the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences, usually on New Year's Day.
Housing just over 90,000 fans, the Rose Bowl has also been the venue for the 1994 World Cup Final, the 1998 Women's World Cup Final, the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal game and numerous international matches.
It has also hosted five NFL Super Bowls.
Ben was there as recently as May when Wales gained a creditable 0-0 draw against Mexico in a friendly watched by an attendance of 82,345 and it’s fair to say he was impressed...
“It was incredible, one of those iconic stadiums, an amazing experience to play there and it will be amazing to play there again,” he said.
“When I played there were over 80,000 fans – the majority were Mexican! That made it a tough atmosphere for us but it was a fantastic experience and I can’t wait to do it again.
“We’ll look back at our careers one day and realise we had the chance to play at some of these world-famous stadiums and the Rose Bowl is definitely one of them.”
As for the challenge of Barca, Ben added: “It will be a tough test and if we want to do well in the Champions League we’ll end up coming up against teams like this next season. It’s tough but we have to be ready.”
Following Barca, we complete our ICC matches against AC Milan at the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, home of the most recent Super Bowl in January, on Tuesday 31 July (7.35pm local/1.35am Wednesday UK).
Join us at the Rose Bowl!
You can purchase tickets for our ICC match against Barcelona here...