Manchester United take on old foes Barcelona in the International Champions Cup on Wednesday. The match is set to take place at the FedEx Field in Maryland, USA with kick-off scheduled for 19:30 (7:30pm) local (US) time / 00:30 (12:30am) GMT.
Jose Mourinho’s men continue their preparations for the upcoming season with another pre-season outing in the United States. They followed up an impressive 2-0 victory against their closest rivals Manchester City with a win, albeit on penalties, over Real Madrid after playing out a 1-1 draw in the 90 minutes. This comes after back-to-back friendly victories over American sides LA Galaxy and Real Salt Lake ensuring United are so far undefeated on tour.
Ernesto Valverde kicked off his reign in charge of Barca with a 2-1 win against Juventus. Neymar, who scored both goals in that game, has stolen the spotlight ahead of the meeting with Manchester United. All the talk is surrounding the future of their Brazilian superstar with rumours gathering serious momentum that he is on the verge of joining Paris St Germain in what would be a monstrous, world-record fee. Valverde already has his work cut out for him, both on and off the field if he is to emulate the success of his predecessors, Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique, at the helm of the Blaugrana.
The two sides clashed a handful of times in Sir Alex Ferguson’s final years at Man United. Paul Scholes scored a memorable winner at Old Trafford to secure a 1-0 aggregate win in the semi-finals of the Champions League on their way to lifting the trophy in 2008 before Barca twice got the better of their English opponents beating them in the final in 2009 and then again in 2011.
Barcelona vs. Manchester United head-to-head:
Played: 11
Barcelona Wins: 4
Draws: 4
Man Utd Wins: 3
Barcelona Goals: 20
Man Utd Goals: 15
Barcelona vs. Manchester United Previous Matches:
28/05/2011 – Barcelona 3-1 Man Utd
27/05/2009 – Barcelona 2-0 Man Utd
29/04/2008 – Man Utd 1-0 Barcelona
23/04/2008 – Barcelona 0-0 Man Utd
25/11/1998 – Barcelona 3-3 Man Utd