United and City go head-to-head tomorrow afternoon in the International Champions Cup as preparations for the new Premier League season, which starts on Saturday 13 August, intensify.
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Beijing and the surrounding region has suffered from torrential rain throughout the past week – so much so that concerns have been raised over whether Monday’s match at the Bird’s Nest should even take place. The latest setback serves to compound their misery over the weekend but they’re not out of the woods yet.
“We were supposed to fly in two different planes”, Mourinho confirmed to reporters.
Since taking on their respective Manchester football giants, each manager has insisted they will not concentrate on each other too much. The plane was not good. The plane was not good, they had a storm and had to land in Tianjin, they had to be in Tianjin for about a couple of hours, they sought to come by bus then they got the plane and they arrived in the hotel to have dinner at 1am in the morning.
“The pitch is very bad and the condition of my players is more important than results”, he said.
“I don’t understand the question to him and I don’t understand the question to myself”.
Guardiola said this week that there was no reason they would not shake hands before the match, as they are both “polite guys” who simply “want to win”. “I don’t see why I wouldn’t shake his hand”.
“But 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”. United isn’t the only side to lose to a German outfit so far this season, though, because City opened their preseason with a defeat against new manager Pep Guardiola’s club, Bayern Munich.
There was little time to rest for Mourinho’s men following the humiliation of their 4-1 loss to Borussia Dortmund in the pre-season friendly clash on Friday afternoon.
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“I would say to them, ‘You are welcome at the training ground.’ Any time you want to give an opinion, welcome, it is your house, it is your home and you can be back when you want”. We’ve enjoyed it. It’s been hard in the heat out here in China, but it’s been really good.
