The battle between Guardiola’s Barca side and Mourinho at Real Madrid encapsulated onlookers for several years, making the renewal of hostilities as Manchester City and Manchester United managers as exciting as it is intriguing. We don’t play. We have to come here (to talk to the media) but this game belongs to the players. Sometimes you win it by winning matches and matches and matches in the marathon between August to May.
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The Argentine striker has been suspended for three games after being adjudged to have elbowed Winston Reid during City’s 3-1 win over West Ham United before the global break. In this moment, you finish the game and we managers we have more work to do than the 90 minutes of the game. Come on! Jose and I don’t play, so I’m sorry. “I have to go to every television, I have to go here and there, after the game I have to go to one of the club’s sponsors”.
Asked if he hoped things would be different this time, Guardiola said: ” Of course, but I don’t know what is going to happen. The people go to Old Trafford, not to see me and Jose on the side, but to see all the big fantastic players on the field.
Ibrahimovic will relish coming up against Guardiola, having described him as a “spineless coward” after the pair clashed during the Swedish striker’s time at Barcelona.
In the build-up to their Champions League semi-final, Mourinho’s acerbic comments prompted an angry, foul-mouthed response from the usually placid Guardiola. You want me to give you headlines and I want to go for lunch. You want a fight, but the fight is (Kell) Brook against the Russian guy (Gennady Golovkin). “It can not help that I have played him before”, he said. “It’s about the players – just the players”. Touchline spats and post-match wine in the managers’ office?
The two men revealed they recently met at a Premier League managers’ meeting, with Guardiola saying they spoke amicably.
Guardiola and United boss Jose Mourinho have both played down their own rivalry and insisted there will be no animosity left over from their bitter feud during their time in Spain.
“So Zlatan didn’t have the best period of his career (at Barcelona), but that’s fine”, Mourinho said.
Mourinho said that so early in a long season no match, even one against City, was more important than any other.
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Ibrahimovic, who has scored four goals in four games for United since joining from Paris Saint-Germain, has played for both men and has very different opinions about each of them. If we don’t do, it is because we have other things to do – it’s not because of that that we have a problem. It’s not because of that that we have a problem because we don’t have a problem. I prefer the 90 minutes of the game than the 90 minutes with you. “That’s important? I don’t think it’s important”, Mourinho said. Wherever he has gone he has won titles. For me especially, it’s a game.
