Jose Mourinho spoke to MUTV and held a post-match press conference at Rio Tinto Stadium after seeing his Manchester United team beat hosts Real Salt Lake 2-1 with goals from Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Romelu Lukaku.
Here are the manager’s post-match comments, as first shown on MUTV.com and the MUTV app…
PLAYING AT ALTITUDE
“The players say that was really difficult. Difficult to breathe, difficult to think. I knew that there are differences playing in altitude but I never felt it because I never played. It was quite a difficult experience for them so the quality was not so high, our intensity was not so high. But it’s good experience and we played, that’s the important thing.”
GOOD TO WIN AFTER FALLING BEHIND
“This is pre-season, the results are not the most important thing. We fly the same day, we go back in the same day and in three days we are playing again. That’s pre-season. People sometimes focus too much on the results. I never do it if the results are good, if the results are bad. I just want to train and to develop the players and give them minutes to play and obviously the other game had better conditions to be a better match than today, especially because they changed the team twice. I really liked the first 30 minutes against their best team but in the second half they changed and they changed again and the boys that were playing were more on the run and in the fight than in the play but it’s okay, it’s an experience.”
VALENCIA’S SENDING OFF
“I think the delay was because the referee asked me to change the player and I didn’t because I didn’t agree with the card. [Sebastian] Saucedo, I think that’s the name of the boy, was really aggressive during all of the second half – what happened to Mata and some other actions where he was a bit dangerous. I understand that, it’s young people with enthusiasm playing against Manchester United but you come with the mentality of a friendly match and in the end if you find yourself in a different mentality. But it’s pre-season so [the red card] is no problem and it’s also a good experience for us to play with one player less.”
INJURIES
“Mata has a big ankle but hopefully nothing really important. I would say a few days, a week, something like that, in principle. And Matteo Darmian I don’t think is even an important problem.”
LUKAKU’S FIRST GOAL
“I think it’s just nice for him but not important for me. When he came [over to the touchline] for the water, before he scored the goal, I told him, ‘I love everything you do on the pitch. Don’t be worried about scoring or not scoring because it’s not important.’ He holds the ball so well, he plays one touch, two touches so well. He sees, he moves, he gets behind people, he attacks crosses, he works with the team and when we lose the ball he presses well. I like everything he does. For me, it’s easy to feel it, because he was my player four years ago or something like that, his evolution was great. He’s now a top striker and the goal is just a detail, not important.”
IMPRESSIONS OF MLS OPPONENTS
“I enjoyed playing LA Galaxy and I enjoyed playing the first half of this game. I think this [Real Salt Lake] team, the team that played the first 35 minutes, they are well coached with good ideas and a good understanding of the game, playing in relation to the qualities of their players – two fast wingers, good midfield moving the ball. I really like the way they played. I just feel sorry they have a game on Wednesday and because of that they couldn’t play the whole game with the best team. I repeat in the second half they had a younger team, with less quality but more enthusiasm, more running and it was more difficult for us to play. But I think the quality [of the MLS] is better [than before]. I like to play in soccer stadiums. I know you have absolutely amazing [American football] stadiums that sometimes you adapt but I like the concept of the soccer stadium, even if it’s smaller. So I like it, I like the fans, I like the enthusiasm around and the quality is improving all the time, I think, so I am happy with that.”
CHANGING THE FULL TEAM – WILL YOU STOP DOING THAT FOR THE BIGGER GAMES?
“No, but I will try to go for 60/30 and some players can play 60 minutes against Manchester City and then they will play 30 minutes against Real Madrid and vice versa. I will try the same, I will try to give minutes to everybody because it’s an important thing. The tactical work we do in training, behind the closed doors, then we go to the matches and of course we try to do the things we have done in training. But it’s very important for everybody to compete and we are going to try to do that. Obviously the level of Manchester City, Real Madrid and Barcelona is higher – it’s Champions League level. They are three important teams in the Champions League which will be a new competition for us too. So it’s good for us and good experiences for us to play against them. I don’t know how they will look to the game, maybe the other teams will have the same philosophy as us, maybe not. I know Manchester City is our city rival, I know Real Madrid is the European champion but it’s not so important for us to play for a result.”
DIFFERENT TACTICS FOR LINDELOF
“It’s the difference between playing with three in the back or four in the back. When you play with three, you project with the wingers and you need the central defenders to drive and to come with the ball. When you play with four in the back, if you project with the right-back and the left-back, you only have two defenders and they have to share [the workload] and keep their position more. His quality of passing is always very good, he’s technically very good but obviously with three in the back, he has more freedom to attack spaces in midfield.”
IS A DEAL FOR PERISIC CLOSE?
“No idea, no idea, my friend.”
