AC Milan v United - All you need to know

Setting the scene... The lads toiled hard in the Santa Clara heat on Sunday afternoon, as they were held to a goalless draw by the San Jose Earthquakes. But now the more competitive side of pre-season is upon us, as some of Europe’s finest clubs convene in the States to contest the sixth International Champions Cup. Milan began their own build-up to the 2018/19 campaign on Saturday, with a 2-0 win over Serie C outfit Novara at their Milanello training centre before flying out to the US.

 

How can I watch? The match will kick off at 20:05 local time on Wednesday evening (04:05 BST on Thursday morning) and, like each and every one of United’s pre-season games, it will be shown exclusively live on MUTV through Sky or Virgin Media in the UK and Ireland, and more widely in the MUTV app and online at MUTV.com.

Who are AC Milan? Second only to Real Madrid in terms of European Cup wins with their seven triumpphs, and Italy’s most successful club after Juventus, the San Siro outfit need little introduction. The club was founded by two Englishmen in 1899 as the Milan Football and Cricket Club, and although it soon lost its association with the latter sport, the anglicised name remains. Whereas other football clubs like Torino (Turin) and Napoli (Naples) are known by the Italian names for their respective cities, the Rossoneri (red and blacks) remain known as Milan, rather than Milano. Their triumphs have not been quite as regular during the last decade – local rivals Internazionale dominated the late 2000s, before Juventus took over in the current decade – but they remain a force to be respected, and reached the Coppa Italia final last season. 

 

Where are we playing? The venue for our third match of the tour will be the 27,000-capacity StubHub Center. The stadium opened in 2003, as the Home Depot Center, and is occupied by Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s latest employers, LA Galaxy.  United’s most recent visit here was last summer, when Romelu Lukaku made his debut for the club in a comfortable 5-2 win marked by a Marcus Rashford double.

Have we met before? On ten competitive occasions. The last clash came in the last 16 of the Champions League in 2010, when United emerged 7-2 winners on aggregate after the two legs. We’ve met Milan in European Cup / Champions League semi-finals three times (1958, 1969 and 2007), narrowly losing on each occasion. But this is a contest that rarely fails to produce something appetising. 

 

Who could feature? Nemanja Matic joined up with the squad last weekend, but Jose Mourinho suggested he will not play against Milan, with just a couple of training sessions under his belt following his World Cup exploits and subsequent holiday. Alexis Sanchez will get another chance to impress after a busy, industrious showing in Sunday’s match against San Jose, while the boss expects Antonio Valencia to return from an injury problem that saw him substituted after just seven minutes in the same game. Elsewhere, there are likely to be further opportunities for Tahith Chong, Mason Greenwood and their fellow Academy colleagues, who have shown exciting glimpses of their promise during the tour so far.