Manchester United begin their 2018-19 Euro campaign with a trip to Bern, Switzerland to face Young Boys, the Swiss champions. It’s a match that could see summer signing Diogo Dalot make his long awaited senior team debut in a Red Devils shirt. Dalot has previously played twice for the club’s U23s.
Meanwhile, defender Marcos Rojo and back-up goalkeeper Sergio Romero, who has seen some playing time in United’s European competitions the past couple years, won’t be fit in time to participate in this one.
Flipping over to Young Boys, they will be without midfielders Jordan Lotomba (knee) and Sandro Lauper (ankle). Winger Miralem Sulejmani could be in line to start after recovering from a concussion, and coming on as a substitute last weekend. Today will see both teams take the somewhat unorthodox step of training on the stadium’s pitch, instead of on a practice field.
“We can’t change the pitch,” Young Boys manager Gerardo Seoane said at a press conference today.
“It’s clear they are not used to pitches like this, so in the beginning I guess it will be a special feeling, but with training and the warm up I think they will be all right.”
United Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
United Team News/Mourinho Press Conference go to this link
Kick-off: 800 pm (BST), Wednesday Sept 19
Odds via Betway: United 7/10 Draw 14/5 Young Boys 4/1
Team news ?
Form guide ?
Have we played them before? ?— Manchester United (@ManUtd) September 18, 2018
Prediction: United 3, Young Boys 1
As always, feel free to post your own United and/or Young Boys starting XI predictions, as well as your best guess as to what the final score will be.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud and YouTube. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to any and all of his.