“In a match it’s more hard so, again, I hope our players and City’s players go home without any kind of injury to start the competitive period well”.
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“Bad conditions for my players to train and bad conditions for my players to play are a problem for me”.
The worldwide friendly between Manchester United and Manchester City, originally planned to kickoff in Beijing at 7:30 p.m. earlier this evening, was called off by event organizers due to severe weather conditions.
Manchester United’s preseason preparations were thrown into further disorder this weekend, when their team plane was forced to make an emergency landing. They had landed in Tianjin, which is around 66 miles from Beijing.
“The second group was unlucky as they had a storm and had to land somewhere else for a couple of hours”.
Guardiola is preparing for his first season in charge at Manchester City, while Mourinho is gearing up for his debut campaign at the helm of Manchester United.
Heavy rain has made the pitch in Beijing unplayable, and a statement on the United website confirmed what would have been the first Manchester derby outside the UK had been postponed.
Foes during their time battling for La Liga glory with Real Madrid and Barcelona, the pair now share the same city and will be vying for Premier League success.
“The pitch is very bad and the condition of my players is more important than results”, he said.
The Portuguese tactician said that the match will be taken as a joke as the state of the pitch is a threat to his players’ fitness.
“We tried to fly to Beijing but the weather is a little bit bad”.
“We move on to Shenzhen, and I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to get some good game-time in and obviously see our fans over there”.
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Louis van Gaal left the club in May two years into his three-year contract with just one piece of silverware to show for his work and Mourinho was also handed a three-year deal when he arrived.
