POGBA IS MY ONLY SPECIAL PLAYER
Jose: Barca and Madrid have such beautiful stars.. Messi, Neymar, Ronaldo, Suarez, Bale, Modric.. but I have just ONE player performing at that level
JOSE MOURINHO claims Paul Pogba is the only Manchester United player as good as the star performers at Barcelona and Real Madrid.
And the Old Trafford boss believes it will be hard for United to match the two Spanish clubs because they have the best players in the world in their squads.
The Reds lost 1-0 to Barca in the final game of their US tour, Brazil striker Neymar (right, celebrating with Messi) grabbing the only goal at FedExField in Washington.
Pogba was a classy and dominant force in the game.
But the £89million France international (above with Messi and far right with Neymar) and his team-mates could not make it five wins out of five from their trip to America.
Before flying back to the UK, Mourinho said: “I think at the moment the best players are in Barcelona and Madrid and you have to accept that as a reality.
“Look at Messi and Neymar. There is only one Messi and one Neymar. And one Suarez, Iniesta, Pique, Ronaldo, Bale, Modric, Toni Kroos. There is only one each of those players.
“So they can only be playing for one club not two clubs. But you can be working very hard tactically to improve your players. Sometimes, though, there are special players and there is just nothing you can do. “When the matches are real matches, you try to compensate the difference in quality with a certain tactical organisation and with that you can win in football, it’s possible. “A team is on a certain day better than the sum of the parts – that’s possible in football.
“But the parts are amazing and their relation with the ball is amazing at Barcelona and Real Madrid.
“You can argue about occupation of spaces and speak about all of that, but the relation with the ball is still the most important thing.
“And as an opponent on the bench, like I am, it is beautiful to see but one of my
players today – Paul Pogba – showed the level and he belongs to that level.”
Mourinho (above) feels comparisons between his team and the two La Liga clubs are futile. He added: “If you want to compare my team with Real Madrid or Barcelona it’s easy to compare the level of the players.
“But we don’t play in the same competition as them unless we meet them in the European competitions, so we prefer not to compare us with them. We prefer to compare ourselves with the teams we play week in, week out in the Premier League and we are much more adapted to that very hard competition.
“But it’s a competition with a different style and player.
“For us to play against both Madrid and Barcelona in preseason without any kind of pressure or being worried about a result and to play the best you can was very good for us on this tour. Both played their best teams. I think only Gerard Pique was on the bench for Barcelona and Real Madrid were without Ronaldo and Ramos who didn’t play, but everybody else did.”
United arrived home yesterday and will spend a couple of days with their families before a friendly in Norway against Valerenga on Sunday.