Burnley’s US Tour Opens With a 3-1 Wake-Up Call in Cincinnati

FC Cincinnati beat Burnley 3-1 at TQL Stadium on July 10, exposing an English club that arrived without a permanent manager or a fit senior goalkeeper. It was the first match of Burnley’s preseason tour, and the first since a second Premier League relegation in three seasons cost Scott Parker his job. Wales full back Connor Roberts and Republic of Ireland midfielder Josh Cullen previewed the trip beforehand, including plans to catch a Cincinnati Reds baseball game before kickoff.

Investors led by J.J. Watt are using the tour to sell a 144-year-old club to American fans. On the pitch, Burnley conceded three goals to an MLS side that is also using the friendly to sharpen up for its own playoff push.

Denkey and a Late Penalty Punish Burnley’s Defense

Kickoff came at 7:36 p.m. local time under clear skies and 83-degree heat. Kévin Denkey opened the scoring in the 15th minute, finishing off a pass from Evander, before Cincinnati doubled its lead.

Burnley’s Josh Laurent pulled one back, but the hosts struck twice more including a penalty in the closing minutes to make it 3-1. Evander, named MLS Player of the Month for May, supplied the opener and kept Cincinnati’s attack sharp all night.

The result mattered to the home side too. Cincinnati sit seventh in the Eastern Conference and are using the World Cup break to shore up a defense that has leaked goals even as the attack has carried the team toward the playoffs. Head coach Pat Noonan fielded a lineup built to test that back line before Major League Soccer resumes July 22 against Vancouver Whitecaps FC.

A Club-Record Low Forced This Reset

Burnley’s relegation was confirmed on April 22 with a 1-0 home defeat to Manchester City, four games before the season even finished. The club finished 19th on just 22 points, a club record low in the three-points-for-a-win era.

It marked Burnley’s fifth relegation from the Premier League overall, making the Clarets only the fourth club to go down from the competition at least five times, joining Norwich City, West Bromwich Albion and Leicester City. Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Ham United went down the same season, a reminder of how unforgiving 2025-26 was even for clubs with Premier League pedigree.

Scott Parker left by mutual consent eight days later, with the club having won just four league games all season. A year earlier, Parker had steered Burnley up with a 31-match unbeaten run and 30 clean sheets, which made the follow-up harder to square. He said it had been “an immense privilege to lead this great club over the past two years” before Mike Jackson took interim charge for the final four fixtures.

Max Weiss Is Burnley’s Only Fit Senior Goalkeeper

Burnley traveled to Ohio with a threadbare goalkeeping department. Martin Dubravka left for Tottenham Hotspur on a free transfer and Vaclav Hladky also departed, leaving 22-year-old Max Weiss as the only senior goalkeeper on the books.

Weiss ended the relegation season as Burnley’s first-choice goalkeeper and is expected to start the Championship opener too. “It felt good to be fair,” he told the club’s official website of his first training session back. “It’s a little hot here but I think we managed that pretty well.”

The turnover goes beyond the goal frame. RB Leipzig have offered up to €24 million for center back Maxime Esteve, another sign the squad Burnley take into the Championship will look different from the one relegated in April. The transfer window across English football, open until September 1 this year, gives Burnley room to add before it closes, though Transfermarkt lists the club’s net summer spend at only about €6.5 million in the red so far.

Who Replaces Scott Parker?

Burnley are closing in on KRC Genk manager Nicky Hayen as their new permanent head coach, with the move expected to be finalized around the American tour. Mike Jackson has run the team on an interim basis since May 1, including the Cincinnati friendly, while the 45-year-old Belgian wraps up his exit from Genk.

Hayen said his goodbyes to Genk’s players before flying to the United States to meet his prospective new squad, according to reports from Belgium. Burnley have not confirmed the appointment, and Jackson remained the man picking the team in Cincinnati.

Whoever takes the job inherits a specific pattern to match. Both Vincent Kompany and Parker won automatic promotion in their first season in charge at Turf Moor, and Burnley’s board wants a third straight instant return to the Premier League.

Selling a Historic Club in Ohio

Friday’s match was the first time an English club had played at TQL Stadium, and just the second time FC Cincinnati had faced English opposition at all. The only precedent came a decade earlier, when Crystal Palace visited Nippert Stadium and drew an Ohio soccer record of 35,061 fans.

FC Cincinnati President and Co-CEO Jeff Berding said hosting a club “with the history of Burnley FC is a great moment for our organization and our fans.” The club averaged 24,668 fans a match in 2025, one of MLS’s stronger draws, inside a stadium built for roughly 26,000.

Burnley’s ownership group has leaned into that history to build an American following since a round of investment three years ago. The excitement from that side of the boardroom was hard to miss in the days before kickoff.

I’m very excited to welcome the Clarets to America for our pre-season tour this summer and I am equally excited for football fans here in the US to get a chance to see our historic club up close and personal.

J.J. Watt, the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year who became a Burnley investor in 2023, said that in a statement released by the club ahead of the tour.

• J.J. Watt – three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, became a Burnley investor in May 2023.
• Kealia Watt – made more than 140 NWSL appearances and won three U.S. Women’s National Team caps before investing alongside her husband.
• Dude Perfect – the YouTube sports entertainment group also holds a minority stake in the club.

Together they give Burnley a foothold in American sports culture well beyond the pitch, one the club is now trying to translate into ticket sales and shirt sales on this side of the Atlantic.

Four Friendlies, Then the Championship Grind Begins

Cincinnati was the first of four announced friendlies before Burnley’s competitive season begins. The tour continues in Columbus and Utah before one last tune-up back at Turf Moor.

The Utah leg carries its own subplot. Real Salt Lake’s founder, David Checketts, sits on Burnley’s board, and chairman Alan Pace once served as RSL’s club president. The friendly will be the 35th international match played on Utah soil.

A trip to Amsterdam to face Ajax was also added to the calendar before Burnley returns to competitive action.

Burnley open the Championship season the weekend of August 14-16, with a Carabao Cup first-round tie the weekend before as the last stop on the way there.