Next Tuesday night will bring the type of event the newly renovated Taft Stadium in Oklahoma City was meant to host when OKC Energy FC moved in, as Liga MX’s C.D. Guadalajara visits for the USL club’s first international exhibition in its short history.

But while there’s now less than a week to go before the likes of Omar Bravo take to the field, the process of putting the event together has been a long time coming. It took plenty of work for Energy FC General Manager Jason Hawkins and his staff to conceive and put into action.

Hawkins and Energy FC Director of Business Development John Allgood got the ball rolling. They used their contacts in sports business who had staged the sort of event that brought more than 11,000 fans to Round Rock, Texas’ Dell Diamond last July for an exhibition between Chivas and Pachuca to gain an understanding of what an event at Taft might entail. Later in the year, Hawkins and others headed to San Jose as Chivas took on Atlas in an exhibition at Avaya Stadium.

“Back in the October-November timeframe there was a large contingent of us who went out to San Jose when [Chivas] was getting ready to play at Avaya [Stadium],” Hawkins said this week. “We kind of dual-purposed it, we went out and met with the folks there at Avaya to see the stadium, and then we watched the game versus Atlas, and then actually had occasion to go to dinner with all of [Chivas’] senior leadership after that.”

From there, the conversation turned to business, with scheduling and logistics being hammered out between the two organizations before the official announcement arrived in April.

Energy FC’s exhibition is one of eight to have been announced this year that will see USL clubs face international opposition over the summer. From established clubs like the Richmond Kickers and Charleston Battery continuing what has now become a summer tradition, to teams like FC Cincinnati, the Charlotte Independence and Energy FC hosting their first events this year, the demand for games of this kind has steadily risen according to Beswicks North America President Barry MacLean.