Manchester United have a very action packed summer preseason schedule, as they’re currently in the midst of a five match in 12 day span. They’re undefeated thus far, having defeated: Real Madrid on penalty kicks 3-2 yesterday in Santa Clara, Manchester City 2-0 in Houston on Thursday night, Real Salt Lake in Sandy 2-1 a week ago and the L.A. Galaxy in Carson 5-2 on the 15th.
Their fifth and final match in the United States comes Wednesday, when they face Barcelona in Washington D.C.
United Manager Jose Mourinho complained quite often about the schedule makers and fixture congestion last season, but he has no issues with the current workload. The Portugese actually sees the experience as an advantage, not a disadvantage, in preparing for the upcoming season. He’s enjoyed his time training at UCLA in Westwood and the trip to the U.S. overall.
Mourinho is so happy with what has transpired that he hopes to return stateside next season.
“We managed to organize the pre-season in a way where we were based in LA for 15 days, which is fantastic to be always in the same hotel, always in the same training ground,” Mourinho said.
“The flights were quiet, short flights to go to Real Salt Lake, Houston was not a problem, and now we are on our way back home. We come here and now we go to DC and DC is halfway home, almost. And after that we have two more matches to play in Norway and Ireland, traveling in the same day, short flights, so I am really happy with our pre-season.”
Mourinho has enjoyed training and visiting southern California for some time (who wouldn’t when you have Hollywood A-lister Julia Roberts dropping in?), but went on to say that this tour of duty would be perfect, provided his banged up midfielders turn out to not be too seriously hurt.
“And if (Juan) Mata and Ander (Herrera) are not a real problem in terms of injuries, I would say perfect pre-season for us.”
“It is the best and I will try everything with my club to be back because, with all the respect, Asia is beautiful, commercially it’s fantastic for the clubs, but the conditions to work are completely different.
“Here it is about the facilities, about the organization and everything is perfect, so we are going to try to persuade the club and Relevent (ICC organizers) to bring us back again.”
United have friendlies versus Valerenga on July 30th and Sampdoria on August 2nd before taking on Real Madrid in Skopje in the Super Cup August 8.
They open the regular season Aug 13 at Old Trafford versus West Ham United.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV.
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