Edwin Benitez drove from Madison to spend time with his brother Carlos and watch his team – Manchester City.

But when the game is on at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday, it’s hard to find a place that’s showing European soccer. Unless you know where to go.

For Manchester City, or Man City, fans in Milwaukee, that bar is Highbury Pub in Bay View.

“I wanted to see the game and we heard about this bar,” Edwin Benitez said. “It’s nice watching the game with people who enjoy the game. If you watch a game at a local bar and people don’t share the same passion, it’s not the same feeling.”

Unlike for the other local professional sports teams, Milwaukee soccer fans have only a select few bars outside of their homes to watch games with their fellow supporters.

“It’s always more fun when you’re with a group of people at bars,” Carlos Benitez said. “And with soccer, you have to pick certain bars to go to. Because if you go to any other bar with a TV, you’re not going to have hardcore fans like here.”

Often games are on at 8 a.m. Wisconsin time making bars like Highbury Pub one of the few places serving drinks to customers.

“It’s a justification for each other of people getting up early in the morning and drinking beer together,” Joe Katz, owner of Highbury Pub, said. “You can’t re-create (the atmosphere). You can’t rewatch soccer. You got to watch it live.”

For Milwaukee Man City and Bayern Munich fans, they’re going to have an opportunity to watch their favorite teams in-person at Lambeau Field on July 23 when the two clubs face each other in a friendly match. And although it’s an exhibition game, Wisconsin has never hosted two soccer teams with as large of notoriety and worldwide following as Bayern Munich and Manchester City.

Cindy Young, a Green Bay resident, Packers season ticket holder and Manchester City fan, remembers watching City play Liverpool in England and a Liverpool fan got thrown out of the stadium.

“Liverpool fans have to sit in the Liverpool section and he was sitting in the City section,” Cindy Young said adding that in England, the fans do mix and sit in separate sections. “And they hauled him out and he was wearing a Green Bay Packer hat.”

Cindy Young said having this match is good for Green Bay residents to “expand their horizons.”

“It’ll open Green Bay’s eyes to a lot of what’s going on worldwide, not just Packers things,” Cindy Young said. “It’s good for the economy up there and it sounds like they’re bringing in a lot of people. It’ll be a lot of fun. Lambeau needs something like that.”

Travelers from all over the world are interested

In the Bundesliga, the top German soccer league, Bayern Munich is like the Los Angeles Lakers winning the league 32 times since 1932, more than any club in the country.

Manchester City is like the Golden State Warriors, in that although the franchise has won the Premier League or English First Division decades ago, the club has won the league five times since the 2011-12 season.

Both teams are the most recent champions of their leagues and soccer fans beyond Wisconsin are expected to descend on Green Bay to watch the clubs play.

“We are going to get people from England, we’re going to get people from Germany, we’re going to get people from Mexico, we’re going to get people from South America, we’re going to get people from China coming here all together to watch a special match,” said Vick Fowler, one of the organizers Mia San Milwaukee Bayern Fan Club.

Bayern Munich’s motto is “mia san mia” or “we are who we are.”

Fowler said they plan on hosting pre-party event at Esterbrook Park in Shorewood on July 22 from 3:30 to 8:30 p.m.

“We’re planning on hosting a huge celebration for all the clubs, all the Bayern Munich clubs here in America,” Fowler said. “A lot of soccer clubs are going to be coming in. A lot of soccer fans are going to be coming just to witness, on our own soil, Bayern Munich playing Man City.”

Kyle Charters, organizer with the Cream Cityzens, the Milwaukee Manchester City fan club, their group has been a go-to for Man City fans outside of Wisconsin.

“We’ve been in touch with supporters from all over the country, like reaching out to us for recommendations and stuff like that, coming here,” Charters said. “We’ve also been in touch with people from Sydney, Australia who are going to come to go to the match at Lambeau. That, to me, puts it into context that it’s special for us here.”

Charters said Highbury Pub has become a hub for soccer fans on the southside of Milwaukee.

“Different places in Milwaukee or other places throughout the world where people claim their pub, and if you’re not rooting for that team it can get a little bit combative,” Charters said. “But the spirit of the Highbury is we’ll get a little bit of banter back and forth, you’ll feel a little bit of trash talk but it doesn’t cross a line. It’s understood—we all love soccer. In three months we’ll be here watching the U.S. men’s national team and we’ll be rooting for the same team.”

With so few soccer bars, relative to Packers, Brewers or Bucks, soccer fans only have a few bars to choose from.

Cindy’s daughter, Kate Young, remembers watching a Manchester City game at Three Lions Pub in Shorewood, home of Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspurs fans.

“They welcomed me with open arms to come and watch the game with them,” Kate Young said. “City ended up winning in penalty kicks and I was all excited and they were joking around with me. But there definitely wasn’t malice or anything. It’s really about community and comradery.”

“I feel like even though there’s all these different supporter groups, there’s definitely a level of respect for all of them. Two clubs can be in the same bar and they can be bantering back and forth but it’s never in malice. It’s just to have fun.”

For Milwaukee area Bayern Munich fans, their gathering spot is Old German Beer Hall on Martin Luther King Drive.

“They’ve done a fantastic job with that, we got half price liters, every once in a while we get breakfast treated to us,” Fowler said of watching Bayern Munich games at Old German Beer Hall. “If you’re looking at it in a realistic way, right now in the morning, they’re selling a lot more liters of beer than they normally would be at this time in the morning.”

Friends Chris Hickman and Paul Schultz also got up early to watch the last game of the season at Old German Beer Hall in April.

“I love all the German beers but it’s great to be able to come here and get the Hofbrau beers,” Hickman said.

Schultz said having such a famous German team come to the state will tap into the state’s German heritage and could grow the game in the area.

“Before she retired my mom worked across the street at Usinger's, my dad was a Volkswagen mechanic,” Schultz said. “If you are going to try to increase the popularity of European soccer in America, I really can’t think of a better place to try to seed it out from than here in Wisconsin.”

David Frievalt got up early to get to Old German Beer Hall for the last game of Bayern’s season. He’s been a fan of the club since the 90’s after learning his grandmother was born in Munich and was excited to learn the club was coming to Green Bay.

“I told my boss, ‘Hey man, I may never get a chance to go over to Munich to see them at the Allianz Arena (where they play), so I’m going to this,’” Frievalt said. “They’re going to be at one of the classic stadiums in the country, I don’t care what sport you play.”

Fowler called the event a “statement game” for soccer fans in the area.

“For the average Green Bay fan that says, ‘It’s not going to be a big event,’ we’re going to open some eyes,” Fowler said. “We’re definitely going to open some eyes.”

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee area soccer fans anticipate large crowd for Man City, Bayern