Newcastle to face Leeds United at Adidas HQ in Germany? - Putting two and two together

Today Newcastle United confirmed the dates they will be jetting off to Germany to take advantage of Adidas' world-class HQ as part of their pre-season preparations.

It has long been known that Newcastle would be using the World Of Sports facilities as part of their new partnership with Adidas and today the club confirmed the dates to be between 15th-20th July.

There's a belief that part of the week-long stay in Germany would see the Magpies play a friendly, but today's press release makes no mention of it.

However, Leeds United are in Germany next week and there has been a mention of a behind-closed-doors friendly by them, with their opposition unannounced.

newcastleunited.com

Leeds have to play their German friendly behind closed doors

The Leeds United website says:

"Leeds United can confirm the club will travel to Germany for a pre-season training camp ahead of the 2024/25 season.

"Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond control of the club, we have recently been informed that any friendly matches played in Germany have been ordered to take place behind closed doors."

Leeds fans believe that the behind-closed-doors aspect is because of a lack of available police, but then point out that Ipswich are playing three friendlies in Germany, all fully policed.

Nothing is confirmed but we think it makes sense

Our theory is that there's a friendly with Newcastle arranged and we want it to be behind closed doors so that Sandro Tonali can get more minutes in as part of his pre-season preparation. As mentioned before, Tonali's ban prohibits him from playing games, even friendlies, in front of fans.

Leeds are another Adidas-affiliated club, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that they could have been invited to the World of Sports HQ. We could be putting two and two together and coming up with 119 here, but it's not an implausible theory.

We should find out soon if the Magpies are set for a friendly next week while in Germany, and indeed who the opponents will be.