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Manchester United and Barcelona’s preseasons climax in Bay Area clash

By on July 24, 2015

There are two different kinds of preseason friendlies. There is the “David versus Goliath” battle. Take Manchester United’s 3-1 win over the San Jose Earthquakes last Tuesday. As much as the match was important to maintain fitness levels and assess his squad, Louis van Gaal said he can also accomplish that in training.

“We have a selection of twenty-six players so we can play eleven against eleven and I can coach more than I can [coach in preseason friendlies],” the Dutch manager said after the Quakes match. “I think that is a better way and that is why we only play four [International Champions Cup] matches this year, compared to five last year.”

Van Gaal played twenty-two against the Earthquakes as well as in United’s earlier win over Club America in Seattle. Of course, the matches are useful — Van Gaal particularly emphasized the need to get players back to fitness, saying: “there are players in my selection that had five weeks of holiday so they lost a lot” — but are more for the marketing director than the manager.

Then there is the “Titan Clash Friendly,” though often times “friendly” hardly describes the contest. In the U.S., these matches can sell out giant American football stadiums and draw widespread international attention, such as last year’s mammoth crowd of 109,318 at the University of Michigan to witness Manchester United defeat Real Madrid.  The match notched the highest attendance ever for a football match in the United States, ahead of Women’s World Cup finals and MLS Cup playoffs. Manchester United will take on Barcelona tomorrow at Levi’s stadium in a match of the same style. United’s opponent is why the match is held at the 68,000-seater 2016 Super Bowl host instead of at the much smaller Avaya Stadium, where United’s previous friendly was staged.

For Van Gaal, the Barca match is of far more importance, likely at least in part because it is a personal opportunity for him to face his former club. “I have said to the players it is fantastic to play against Barcelona because then you know a little bit if you are at a certain level, to play, to win the Champions League,” said the 63-year-old at a press conference in San Jose. “Our aim this season is not to win the Champions League but to be close. Of course I know that this is pre-season. We know very well that winning [against Barça] is not the real truth because in the season you have to show it. Not in the pre-season. The performance is more important than the result. That is for me what counts, how we perform. I would be very happy if we win, of course.”

Van Gaal told Football Every Day his goal with preseason was to pin down a starting eleven and that Barcelona would signal his intentions to come. “Against Barcelona I’ll play longer with our [starting] lineup, so I already have to sort of select a first lineup,” he said. “I have to select which players are going to play sixty minutes, so it’s the first selection.”

The former Netherlands manager hopes that David de Gea can return from a “minor” injury and confirmed that Bastian Schweinsteiger will be sidelined. Angel di Maria and Marcos Rojo will join United’s tour tomorrow, but Van Gaal said they won’t be featured against Barca: “They’ll come, but they can’t play here because, and it is the same with Schweinsteiger, you first have to train more and then play forty-five-minutes. They can play maybe thirty minutes, but I don’t think so.”

Van Gaal wants to get his side up to speed with the physicality and pace of the Premier League and tomorrow’s match is perfect test run. “It is always our standard to play quicker, but it is also depends on the quality of the opponent,” he said. “When we park the bus, you cannot play very quickly because the space is very narrow and it is very difficult to play very quickly,” he said. “I have explained that [after] those kind of games, but we have played also fantastic games where we have played very quickly with very good positional play and that delivers a lot of goals.”

Barcelona beat the LA Galaxy in a tight 2-1 win earlier this week, although Luis Enrique’s goals are perhaps different then Van Gaal’s considering Lionel Messi and Neymar didn’t join the club’s preseason tour. Yet it’s not as if Levi’s Stadium won’t be brimming with stars anyway.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.