Lambeau Field to host Manchester City-Bayern Munich exhibition match, per report

With Green Bay losing a home game in 2022 thanks to the Packers playing in London, they will be welcoming a different kind of football to Lambeau.

Over the last 15 years or so, the Green Bay Packers have opened up Lambeau Field to a variety of events that do not directly involve the home team. First, in February 2011, the stadium played host to an outdoor hockey game between the Wisconsin Badgers and Ohio State Buckeyes. Wisconsin’s football team played LSU there in 2016 and had a 2020 game against Notre Dame on the schedule before the COVID-19 pandemic postponed it to 2026.

Concerts have been a common occurrence at Lambeau as well over the last handful of years, as the Packers organization has looked for new ways to create revenue out of a stadium that otherwise only sees use ten days a year. In 2022, that list of events will expand further. Shortly after Green Bay Press-Gazette journalist Rich Ryman reported on a major event taking place at the stadium this summer, details of that event were revealed.

According to local Green Bay insider Kyle Cousineau, Lambeau Field will play host to an exhibition soccer match between two powerhouses of European football: Manchester City and Bayern Munich. The game is reportedly set for July 23rd, just a few days before the Packers are likely to hold their shareholders meeting and see players report for training camp, and Cousineau expects the team to officially announce the game in a few days.

Both of these clubs are among the very best in the world and are currently looking to defend their league titles before they come to Green Bay. Manchester City ran away with the English Premier League title in 2020-21 and are currently leading this year as well, holding a lead of one point over Liverpool with nine games left in the season. Meanwhile, Bayern won the German Bundesliga by 13 points last season and carry a six-point lead at present.

These two clubs are also both currently participating in the UEFA Champions League, which pits the 32 best teams from across Europe in a tournament to decide the continent’s club champions. Both have advanced to the quarterfinals, which will start next week on April 5. They have met in the Champions League several times over the past decade, but their most recent meeting was also an exhibition match in an NFL stadium. That came at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami during the summer of 2018, when City earned a 3-2 victory.

This arrangement with two legendary soccer brands may be intended to help the Packers organization and the Green Bay economy to make back some of the revenue that is expected to be lost by having one fewer home game than usual in 2022. With the NFL’s move to a 17-game regular season and a three-game postseason last year, the Packers will typically have just one preseason game at home and nine regular season home games in even years versus two and eight, respectively, in odd years and in past seasons. However, 2022 will see Green Bay forfeit one of those regular season games to be the “home” team for a game in London at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, leaving the team with just nine home dates in total for the year.