Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho met the media a few minutes hours ago to preview his side’s massive rivalry clash against Liverpool at Anfield. Mourinho gave a very spirited, substantial in duration and definitely very interesting monologue about a given game’s atmosphere and what that means to players and managers.
He concluded that Anfield will provide beautiful conditions tomorrow and that playing at Anfield is beautiful in general.
“You know this is quite funny for me because I think when people speak about big atmospheres, it looks like we don’t like, it looks like it’s a problem for us to go to a certain place and to face a big atmosphere — this is what we want,” Mourinho said.
“I am surprised that you speak about that in a negative way, I am even more surprised when I hear former, big players speak about atmospheres like something sinister, something that worries. It motivates us, it is something that we want, it is something that if we could have every match we would have every match.”
“You know, when Barcelona played against Las Palmas with an empty stadium, do you think the players were happy with that? Do you think Las Palmas players wouldn’t prefer to play with Nou Camp full of people and a great atmosphere?”
“We are speaking about Old Trafford, in this case Anfield like it’s a big problem. it’s a satisfaction, that’s what we want.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFJZEMYyJE
“I never see a player complain ‘oh, this atmosphere was very strong’ — we complain when the atmosphere is flat. When we play at home and we don’t see big enthusiasm in the people, we complain.”
“So we go to where we want to go, we go to play against a big team with a big tradition in an amazing stadium with great tradition.”
“We know that the fans have huge animosity against Manchester United historically, but this is what we want so we are very happy to have one more opportunity in our careers to play in this beautiful conditions. It’s beautiful to play at Anfield. Beautiful.”
In the last few editions of this rivalry, a couple of the games have been far from beautiful, but perhaps that changes at Anfield tomorrow. This match is always huge, but Saturday’s edition also comes off an international break with plenty of time to look forward to, analyze and hype it.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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