Mourinho and I will shake hands: Guardiola

BEIJING — Pep Guardiola pushed aside any suggestion he would not shake hands with Jose Mourinho and insisted all would be friendly when Manchester City play Manchester United today, despite an acrimonious rivalry that stretches back to 2010, when he was in charge of Barcelona and Mourinho took the reins at Real Madrid.

“We are polite guys, why not?” said the City manager yesterday after training ahead of the International Champions Cup pre-season tour match. “Why should we not shake hands? No reason why. He will want to win and so will I, that’s all. It’s a friendly game, a really friendly game.”

Since taking on their respective Manchester football giants, each manager has insisted they will not concentrate on each other too much.

But Guardiola acknowledged that United would mount a serious challenge in the English Premier League after a period in the doldrums since the retirement of Alex Ferguson in 2013. “I’m pretty sure they will be stronger than in previous years,” said Guardiola. “With this manager, I’m sure they will buy new players. They will be a strong team.”

Yesterday’s training session was switched hastily to the smaller Olympic Sports Centre to preserve the famous Bird’s Nest stadium’s pitch for the first Manchester derby outside of the United Kingdom, following days of storms in Beijing that have left the ground saturated.

Guardiola acknowledged that conditions would not be ideal and his priority at this stage of pre-season was to avoid any injuries. “We didn’t see the pitch but there is a lot of water in the last (few) days, so we understand it’s not in a good condition,” he said. “The most important thing is that the players are not going to be injured but we also know that it’s so important to come here to know the people and to play a good two games against amazing teams like United and (Borussia) Dortmund.”

United lost 4-1 to Dortmund in Shanghai on Friday and City will play the German side in Shenzhen on Thursday to conclude their China tour. AFP