Billy Hogan Interview: ‘We’re very excited to be back in the US’

Arne Slot’s Reds arrived in Pittsburgh on Tuesday to begin their United States preparations for the 2024-25 campaign as they meet Real Betis at the Acrisure Stadium on Friday (kick-off 7.30pm EST).

Then there are clashes against Arsenal in Philadelphia and Manchester United in Columbia, South Carolina, along with a large amount of community and supporter events taking place throughout the trip.

Read Liverpoolfc.com’s chat with Hogan as he looks forward to another memorable stay in America…

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Billy, I’ve arrived in the US – how long have you been waiting for this?

Yes, it’s great to be here. Obviously we just landed and arrived at the hotel. Excited to be back in the US, we were last here in 2019 and had a phenomenal reception everywhere we went. Obviously we’re looking forward to the same thing here in 2024. A couple of summers without pre-season tournaments (in 2020 and 2021) and then we’ve been in Asia for the last two. So it seemed like the right time to come back to North America.

We’re here in Pittsburgh for the first game on Friday, then we go to Philadelphia for the Wednesday game and then to Columbia, South Carolina to wrap up next Saturday. So, I’m looking forward to it. A huge amount of work goes into bringing the team to our supporters outside of the UK and outside of Europe, so I just want to take a second to thank everyone who works so hard at these events. It’s the people across the club who are working on it. I’m looking forward to being here – it’s going to be a lot of work and a lot of fun.

How important is this period in the build-up to a new Premier League season?

This is called pre-season for a reason, it’s about getting the squad fit and as Arne said, it’s actually about building on fitness levels. Obviously, due to the fact that there have been a number of tournaments this summer, we have players coming back at different times and that is a challenge, getting everyone up to a fitness level. But that’s incredibly important from our point of view, it’s something that goes into a lot of thinking about the facilities that we go to.

The three venues we play in – Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and South Carolina – are phenomenal venues. But the training grounds themselves are truly top notch. Most importantly, the folks on the field gave it their seal of approval. We are very excited about the training facilities. It’s about getting the team fit; so it’s important to introduce them to our supporters around the world, but it’s also important to make sure they have time to develop their fitness.

These supporters mostly wake up in the middle of the night to watch Liverpool. Will seeing them in the flesh here be seismic for so many people?

Yes, it is part of being one of the biggest clubs in the world, if you have supporters who are all over the world; many of them will never get the chance to come to Anfield and never get the chance to see Liverpool play a live match in the UK or Europe. It’s our opportunity and we feel it’s our responsibility to get the club out there and be able to engage more directly with the supporters. It’s important for us to do that wherever we are in the world, that’s something we’re really looking forward to as we go out into these communities, hold events in the communities and really engage with our supporters here on the ground.

There are a number of supporters’ clubs here too. There will be many engagements with them and no doubt there will be a great party…

We are blessed to have a number of official Liverpool Supporters Clubs here in the States – 57 in the US in fact in 35 different states. An extraordinary pursuit. I think it speaks to the popularity of the team, it speaks to the popularity of the Premier League – in fact our game against Arsenal last season (had) over two million viewers and it’s actually a US audience record with NBC, our broadcast partner. here in the US. It’s an incredibly important market for the team itself. Over half of our trading partners are based in the US now – Nike, Expedia, Google, UPS. And it is our largest international market in terms of merchandising and retail. So there’s a lot of different reasons to come back and of course it’s always to engage with our supporters when we’re out here on the ground.

It’s not just that the team is here to train. They will be there meeting people in the community, spreading the word about Liverpool…

Absolute. It’s something we take very seriously. It’s not just entering a match and leaving again. It’s something we think is important – that we engage in the community. And in particular, our LFC Foundation coaches will be working with a number of different groups here in each community – Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and South Carolina. We have the opportunity to work with a number of different programs on the court and actually the LeBron James Foundation events later in the week.

The first team will also engage with our supporters, working with the Make A Wish Foundation in each city to engage with supporters. It’s something we feel really strongly about. And then obviously there’s loads of fan events – our very own Jamie Webster will be playing – so fans have plenty of special events in store. (I’m) looking forward to what’s going to be a really fun tour.

And finally on the football side, a new manager of course preparing for that new season and some great opposition to face…

It will be three very competitive games: obviously Real Betis here in Pittsburgh and then Arsenal in Philadelphia, Manchester United in South Carolina. We also have some history with Real Betis, but we play two enemies we know well in Arsenal and Manchester United. But I think it’s important for all four teams in this case because we’re all preparing and moving forward for the season (and) to have some competitive games to play. All three will be great.

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