“Due to recent weather events, tournament organizers & participating clubs have made a decision to cancel tonight’s International Champions Cup game”, Manchester United said on its official twitter account.
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It will be the first time the duo have crossed swords in four years, since Mourinho was manager of Real Madrid and Guardiola was in charge of rivals Barcelona, a period where relations were rarely unstrained.
Manchester City and Manchester United’s International Champions Cup preseason friendly in Beijing has been cancelled due to “recent weather events”, it has been confirmed.
But Guardiola is anxious that his players may be more susceptible to injury by playing on the sub-standard surface, and he says his priority from the match is now to avoid any casualties.
Following a friendly against Borussia Dortmund during a short and relatively straightforward stay in Shanghai, United have come to Beijing to take on Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in what looked set to be a mouth-watering friendly.
“I repeat, if it was a friendly then it becomes a double friendly because no injuries, play calm, play safe, go home, keep the preparation next week”.
“Of course, we are polite guys”, said Guardiola. “Why not? Why wouldn’t I shake hands?” he told reporters at a pre-game press conference.
“I think Beijing is also unlucky because the pitch is very bad”, the Portuguese said.
“The conditions for training are not ideal, but we will have to adapt”.
And an irritable Mourinho was left equally dumbfounded as to why such scrutiny was being placed on any pre-match trivialities between the two.
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has insisted that there is no reason as to why he wouldn’t shake hands with Jose Mourinho when they cross paths this week. “We didn’t see the pitch but there is a lot of water in the last (few) days, so we understand it’s not in a good condition”, he said.
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At both press conferences – by the two managers – held last night, Pep and Jose acknowledged that they were anxious about the state of the pitch.
