Chelsea Football Club departed today for the Samsung Asia Tour 2008 to play our first ever matches in China.

Luiz Felipe Scolari's debut as Chelsea FC manager will be against Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on July 23 and the Brazilian is relishing the challenge.

'I am very much looking forward to our visit and games in China,' he said.

'This will be the first time I have taken a team to play there and it will be my first match in charge of the Chelsea squad. I know the Chinese fans are passionate about the game and we are excited about playing in front of them against some strong opposition.'

After two weeks with his new players, Scolari believes progress is being made and the match preparation in Asia and then Russia will be the perfect platform for the new season.

'My evaluation is that the players started to train as a little group, and after three days more players came. After three days, even more players, and now in the last four or five days we have all the players in good condition, but not our best condition.

'It is not too different from how I prepared in Brazil when we also had two weeks maximum to train, and after we have games. Here now is the same, we have two weeks for training and we travel to Asia to play three games, and then to Russia for two more games.

'The difference is Chelsea gives the best conditions for the players and coaches to train hard, because we have all the best facilities.

'The players are not ready yet totally, but we are starting to build a new team and a new philosophy. This is just the beginning, and I expect after these five games that I have a general idea about all the players and a system.'

Chelsea will be travelling to Asia with a virtually full strength first team squad including new signings Deco and José Bosingwa as well as captain John Terry, vice-captain Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole, Petr Cech, Ricardo Carvalho, Andriy Shevchenko, Nicolas Anelka, Michael Essien and Salomon Kalou who is likely to be playing for the Ivory Coast at the Beijing Olympics in August.

Michael Ballack will be joining up with the team in China after taking holiday following the European Championship Final. Didier Drogba will not be travelling as he continues his rehabilitation from a knee injury at Chelsea's Cobham training ground.

The second fixture will be played in Macau against the Chinese Super League side Chengdu Blades on July 26 with the Asia leg of pre-season finishing in Kuala Lumpur on July 29 against a Malaysian Select XI.

Chelsea will use the opportunity in China to raise awareness and funds for the earthquake relief effort following the devastation of the city of Chengdu in the province of Sichuan in May. There will be a number of money raising events around the two matches including a donation from gate receipts.

The city of Chengdu is well known to Chelsea officials as it is one of the cities in the Vision China grass roots project which the club is a partner in with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

Last year Chelsea became the Official Football Development Partner of the AFC's Vision China project, part of their larger Vision Asia programme. So far Chelsea has helped launch five of the planned 10 Vision China city leagues, in Nanjing, Wuhan, Qingdao, Zibo and Chengdu for local players from under 6 to under 20 age groups.

By the time the team touches down, an extensive Chelsea Football in the Community programme will already be underway in China working with the local football authoritiesand the AFC.

Chelsea ambassadors Graeme Le Saux and Lorrie Fair will also be on hand to help promote the work done by the club. Chelsea also has a Chinese language website in Mandarin with Sina, www.chelsea.sina.com.cn

Independent research has estimated Chelsea has 60 million fans in the combined major Asian markets of China, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, India and Indonesia.

Following the Asia leg of pre-season, Chelsea will also play in the Railways Cup tournament in Moscow between August 1 and 3 with Lokomotiv Moscow, AC Milan and Sevilla.

All of the pre-season games will be exclusively live on Chelsea TV in the United Kingdom.