Mourinho takes his Manchester United team to the south coast on the opening day of the Premier League season to face Bournemouth on the 14th August.
Advertisement
“To ensure the safety of players and fans, the organizers, together with Manchester United and Manchester City clubs, chose to cancel this match”, the notice said.
Rain had fallen overnight and there were forecasts of more heavy rain on Monday.
City head on to Guangdong for their next tour match, against Borussia Dortmund at the Shenzhen Stadium on Thursday, while United will be heading home.
A shame for the fans in China, though Jose Mourinho will presumably be delighted that his players have avoided injury.
“In Shanghai and and now in Beijing we’ve felt that you really love the club, you really love United – so we are really disappointed because we were looking forward to the game”.
After the match, Mourinho said the match was “like Formula One against Formula Three”. The players eventually made it to the team hotel in Beijing at 1:00 am.
“It is nearly the end and we can go home and train in conditions where the players are safe”, said Mourinho after a wild couple of days for his squad after they lost 1-4 to Borussia Dortmund in Shanghai on Friday.
Fans have understandably been excited about the first Manchester derby to be played overseas since it was first announced, but the Reds boss was quick to remind journalists at Sunday’s pre-match press conference that players’ fitness remains the priority. It was a friendly before we knew the conditions. The conditions for the training session are not the best.
Sunday’s makeshift training venue struggled to cope with the hundreds of media. Mourinho’s scheduled press conference was called off when too many people tried to pack into the press room which became overheated.
“I am sure we will return to the Bird’s Nest in the future to give them the chance to see the team in action”.
Advertisement
Discussing Guardiola, he said: “Of course I’ll shake his hand – I don’t understand the question to him and I don’t understand the question to myself”.
