Chicago is the greatest summer city in the entire world (see the photo above for proof), but Manchester United won’t have time to experience it. If they beat Paris St. Germain tonight at Soldier Field, the Red Devils will get the chance to lift a preseason trophy, so the city of broad shoulders could given the team some very pleasant memories.
But the heat, and more so the humidity impairs United’s ability to effectively train in my hometown. And no one is going to argue with Manager Louis van Gaal in that time spend on the training pitch is much more important that these preseason friendlies.
We know that Van Gaal would rather not go on these summer exhibition tours of the United States, but we all know that he must acquiesce to the big name, big money corporate sponsors of the club. And it’s been extremely hot and humid here in Chicago all week; not conducive to training.
Manchester United stayed in Seattle, and then San Jose as long as they could. They didn’t get to Chicago until very late. The Red Devils arrived at their hotel around 1o pm. (Here’s video, photos of the players meeting the hundreds of Manchester United fans that greeted them at the Four Seasons, the team’s hotel.
Juan Mata signed autographs for some devoted supporters.
According to the Manchester Evening News, the team will head to airport immediately following the match against PSG tonight.
As M.E.N. put it,
” You get the impression that if it was possible for a club of United’s size to disappear to some remote part of Spain for a couple of weeks during pre-season, that would get his vote rather than a flash tour of the United States.”
Oh and of course this game’s biggest storyline is the never ending Angel Di Maria transfer saga; as he’s close to finalizing a move from United to PSG. Extremely rare that something like this happens; the two clubs involved in a transfer meet right at the time that the deal is being closed.
The match kicks off at 8 pm local time, and airs on FOX Sports 1 at 10:30. The 62,000 seat venue is sold out. We’ll see which side plays more of their starters tonight and hence puts in a bigger effort towards winning.
We also did a past, present, and future history of each side tonight in order to preview the game.
Here’s the Paris St. Germain version.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country.
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