I speculated earlier that the local ex-pat community around Malaga might pack out the Estadio La Rosaleda when Aston Villa comes to town tomorrow. Now I’m not so sure.

I’ve just watched LDU Quito beat Al-Ittihad 3-1 in an almost entirely empty Municipal de Chapín stadium in Jerez. The stadium can hold ~20k and is the home to Xerez CD who will be in La Liga next year for the first time in their history. Apparently that isn’t enough to encourage anyone to come watch a club from Ecuador take on a team from Saudi Arabia. OK, not the most glamorous tie in the world perhaps. Both of these teams will take on Real Madrid in the Bernabéu in their next matches. Talk about contrasts!!

What’s really left me scratching my head though is watching Sevilla host Juventus in a mostly empty Estadio Olímpico de Sevilla. In fairness, this ~58k seat stadium isn’t Sevilla’s home turf, they play at ~43k seat Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán. However, the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán will be used later in the tournament – Sevilla vs Seongnam, the Groups A & B semi final and the third place play off – and this suggests to me that the organisers figured they’d need a bigger venue for Sevilla vs Juventus. If the 17,000 I think I heard the commentators say at half time is the correct attendance then they could have held it in Jerez and still had seats to spare.

There might be a very good reason why the Sevilla fans didn’t come out to see their side take on Juventus tonight and I’d be interested to hear what it is. Especially since the next game I’m about to watch is AC Milan vs Chelsea which is being held in a sold out (71k) M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. It sold out some time ago folks and this is on the back of several other sell out crowds in America this summer.

I’m not in Spain, so naturally I can’t say for sure, but based on the awful website and silly YouTube videos I’ve seen I’d have to surmise that the Peace Cup organisers haven’t done a very good job of promoting this tournament. There’s many more games to play and it may be unfair to pass any judgement yet, but when one of the hosts – a Champions League team themselves next season, no less – can’t draw a crowd to watch them play Juventus then there’s a problem somewhere.

It may well be that back in South Korea it takes little effort to fill a cauldron like stadium with screaming fans eager to see teams from Europe strut their stuff in the summer. This is the first time that they’ve taken the tournament outside of South Korea and perhaps they’ve been caught unprepared. I don’t know, but if this is the way the competition continues then it’s a shame. Despite the dodgy connection to the Moonies, I love the concept of bringing together these types of teams for pre-season competition.

Here’s hoping that today’s crowds aren’t a sign of things to come.