The inaugural Friuli Venezia Giulia Cup kicks off Saturday at the Bluenergy Stadium in Udine, bringing FC Barcelona, Udinese, and Nottingham Forest together in a three-team, three-match pre-season tournament that gives all three clubs competitive minutes before their domestic campaigns begin.
The competition consists of three 45-minute matches, with Forest taking on Udinese first at 8 p.m. CEST, followed by Barcelona versus Nottingham Forest at 9 p.m. CEST, and concluding with Udinese against Barcelona at 10 p.m. CEST.
The tournament brings together clubs from three of Europe’s top leagues and forms part of an international promotional initiative led by the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, organized by Udinese, aimed at raising the area’s international profile through sport.
The tournament operates on a league format, with the winning team in normal time receiving three points. If a match ends level after 45 minutes, a penalty shootout decides the winner, with the victorious side earning two points and the losing side collecting one point. The team accumulating the most points across all three fixtures will be crowned champions of the inaugural edition.
Hansi Flick’s Barcelona side will take part in the inaugural edition, a competition that has attracted attention because it revives a format that has virtually disappeared from European football and one the Catalan club has not experienced in more than two decades.
Triangular tournaments were a fixture of pre-season football in the 1990s and 2000s, particularly in Italy, where AC Milan, Inter Milan, and Juventus played the annual TIM Trophy 16 straight times from 2001 to 2016.
Flick’s men completed a week-long training camp in England and trained in Barcelona on Friday before travelling to Italy on Saturday, heading into the tournament with fewer pre-season minutes than their two opponents.
Nottingham Forest played their opening pre-season friendly on July 18 and have already completed five matches, while Udinese have played four pre-season fixtures ahead of Saturday’s event.
Flick’s side will feature several youngsters from La Masia alongside first-team reserves as the club uses the format to distribute playing time across its squad. With two matches in a single evening, Barcelona’s coaching staff will have the opportunity to assess a wider pool of players in competitive conditions ahead of the new season.
Barcelona arrived in Udine as the reigning champions of La Liga and the Supercopa de España, having also reached the quarter-final of the UEFA Champions League during the 2025/26 campaign.
Nottingham Forest, a historic English club with two European Cups to their name, reached the Europa League semi-finals last season. Oliver Glasner has taken over as manager after winning the FA Cup and Conference League with Crystal Palace.
Udinese, managed by Kosta Runjaić, has maintained an ever-present record in Italy’s top flight for the past 31 seasons and serves as both host and organizer of the Saturday event.
The tournament marks Barcelona’s first visit to Udine in almost 20 years, with their only previous meeting against Udinese coming on December 7, 2005, in the UEFA Champions League group stage. Saturday also marks Nottingham Forest’s first-ever appearance in the Friulian capital.
Less than a year after Udine welcomed the UEFA Super Cup, the Bluenergy Stadium returns to the spotlight of international football through a collaboration between the Friuli Venezia Giulia region and Udinese Calcio. The venue, which has a capacity of around 25,000, provided the backdrop for one of European football’s most prestigious annual fixtures and now hosts this new triangular format.
The addition of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Cup completes Nottingham Forest’s pre-season schedule, with seven fixtures in total set to provide preparation ahead of the 2026/27 campaign. The Friuli Venezia Giulia Cup begins Saturday evening, with Barcelona scheduled to play two 45-minute matches across the night at Bluenergy Stadium in Udine.
