Beijing battle: No stoking rivalry with Pep Guardiola, insists Jose Mourinho ahead of China match-up of Manchester giants
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho will not stoke his rivalry with fellow new recruit Pep Guardiola at Manchester City next season because it could damage his team’s Premier League title hopes, he said on Tuesday.
My experience does not allow me to be naive. What I mean by that is that I was with Pep for two years in a championship where the champion was either him or me, Real Madrid or Barcelona
Mourinho and Guardiola had a fractious relationship when the Portuguese was in charge of Real Madrid and the Spaniard was at the helm at Barcelona during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons.
“My experience does not allow me to be naive. What I mean by that is that I was with Pep for two years in a championship where the champion was either him or me, Real Madrid or Barcelona,” Mourinho told an event at the Faculty of Human Kinetics in Lisbon.
“In a situation like that individual battles make sense because they can have an influence. If, in the English Premier League, I focus on him at Manchester City and he on me at Manchester United, another team will win the title.”
Mourinho, who replaced the sacked Louis van Gaal, and Guardiola, who is taking over from Manuel Pellegrini, will renew hostilities in the pre-season International Champions Cup.
United will be trying next term to make up ground on their neighbours who have finished above them in the Premier League for the past three campaigns since manager Alex Ferguson stood down.