Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur secured victories in their respective pre-season friendlies.
United narrowly beat South African side AmaZulu FC 1-0, thanks to a goal from Federico Macheda while Chelsea got off their pre-season campaign to a winning start with an entertaining 4-2 win over the Seattle Sounders in CenturyLink Field.
Teenager Romelu Lukaku opened the scoring in the third minute after being put through by another youngster Josh McEachran.
Eden Hazard got his first goal for his new club, when his deflected effort in the 10th minute found the back of the net. Fredy Montero made the match interesting by scoring two quick-fire goals for Seattle. However, another debutant, Marko Marin, gave Chelsea the lead with a fine strike in the 39th minute. Lukaku completed his brace four minutes later.
Di Matteo made seven changes at half-time, including the introduction of Kevin De Bruyne, but there were no further goals.
Chelsea now head to New York, where they will face Paris St Germain at the Yankee stadium on Sunday.
In South Africa, the crowd were treated to some nice passing moves from both teams, which saw the debut of summer signing Shinji Kagawa, who made a late cameo.
Fellow summer arrival Nick Powell, however, didn't feature. Frederic Veseli, Scott Wootton, Robbie Brady and Jesse Lingard all pulled on a senior shirt for the first time, with Marnick Vermijl, Tyler Blackett, Ryan Tunnicliffe and Davide Petrucci also debuting when they came off the bench in the second half.
Played against the backdrop of celebrations for Nelson Mandela's 94th birthday, the match started brightly. Javier Hernandez spurned a golden chance inside two minutes, but the star of the match was Dimitar Berbatov. The Bulgarian played in the middle of a three-pronged attack also featuring Hernandez and Macheda, and it was the former Spurs striker's marvellous through ball, which saw Macheda score the only goal of the game.
Spurs' new recruit Gylfi Sigurdsson got on the scoresheet as the North London club beat Stevenage 2-0 at the Lamex stadium. Youngster Yago Falque scored the second goal for Spurs, as the Andre Villas-Boas era began on a winning note.
