Arsenal confirm opening friendly of 2026 pre-season

Arsenal have confirmed their first 2026 pre-season friendly in front of fans, with Mikel Arteta’s team to play away to Girona on August 1st.

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Arsenal have officially announced that they’ll face Girona in a friendly at the Estadi Montilivi on Saturday, August 1st at 8pm local time, adding that the match will be the first of their 2026/27 pre-season schedule.

The Gunners have already confirmed that they’ll then travel to Dublin for a game against Real Betis on Wednesday, August 5th at the Aviva Stadium at 7:30pm local time.

Though the club haven’t revealed any further friendlies before the Community Shield match on August 16th, they add that the squad will return to London following the match in Dublin, which effectively verifies recent media reports on the other two planned friendly matches.

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Tom Canton reported for Football.London this week that Arsenal are in talks over two pre-season friendlies against Borussia Dortmund and Como 1907, and that it was likely the games would take place between the Real Betis match and the Community Shield.

Football insider Hand of Arsenal added that whilst nothing is finalised yet, those two opponents are indeed the frontrunners for Arsenal’s pre-season schedule, with both set to be at home and one likely to be the Emirates Cup game.

The potential dates are August 9th and 12th, though this is yet to be confirmed.

It’s also likely that Arsenal will have a game or two behind closed doors, but we may not learn about those until shortly before they happen, or perhaps not even until afterwards.

Arsenal 2026 pre-season schedule

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Times in BST, unconfirmed fixtures in italics

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