Making tracks with Chelsea FC
The 2026 EPL pre-season tracker created by @christina6ys.bsky.social is a neat site to keep track of summer schedules. Chelsea in particular have a very ambitious preseason schedule, one that got underway July 25 and will return to England sometime after August 9.
It features five matches in 12 days, but most remarkably involves in excess of 39,000 km worth of air travel - slightly more than two full days inside an airplane.
| Leg | Distance | Est. flight time |
|---|---|---|
| London → Sydney | 16,980 km / 10,550 mi | ~19h 45m |
| Sydney → Hong Kong | 7,375 km / 4,580 mi | ~9h 15m |
| Hong Kong → Jakarta | 3,250 km / 2,020 mi | ~4h 50m |
| Jakarta → Senai (Iskandar Puteri) | 925 km / 575 mi | ~1h 35m |
| Senai → London | 10,880 km / 6,760 mi | ~14h 00m |
| Total | ~39,400 km / 24,500 mi | ~49h 25m |
One can only imagine the planning that went into this tour: "Hong Kong isn't that far from Sydney, is it?"
I doubt it's the sort of start to a new Premier League season Xabi Alonso had in mind.