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Man Utd midfielder Nemanja Matic during a recent interview.

Matic still focused in summer

Transcript

"It's impossible to not think about football on holiday because it's my life," says Nemanja in our recent interview…

Transcript

Do you get excited by the fixture list?
“Yeah, I’m getting excited about the new season but I don’t look to fixtures a lot because you have to look game by game. The next game is always the most important. The most important game at the moment when the fixtures come out is the first game, so you are focussed on the first game. Then when you finish that, you can think about the second one. The season is long and always the first game in front of you is the most important.”

Do you prefer to be at home for the first game?
“Yes, it’s always better to start at home in front of our supporters but, as I said, the season is long and this doesn’t change anything. But it is always good to start at Old Trafford, of course.”

Do you think about football when you’re on holiday?
“It’s not possible to not think about football because football is my life and in 24 hours, most of the time I think about football – of course, apart from my family. But football is something I’ve been doing since I was five years old.”

Do you play much football on holiday?
“Yeah, with my son I play. I play with my brother, two-touch, tag-ball [laughs], always active.”

How is the mood on the first day back at training?
“It depends if I had a good holiday and a long holiday. The mood is great but last summer was not good for us because we had the World Cup, we had a short holiday, maybe 20 days or something, so we didn’t think we had enough time to rest. But I think this time we will have more days off, so I think on 1 July we will be in a good mood.”

Do you have a positive feeling about next season?
“Yeah, I think we need to be focussed from the first day, to prepare physically and to be ready mentally for the season which is in front of us and yeah we think positive, we want to win trophies so I think everyone needs to be ready.” 

Do you expect to have a tough pre-season?
“I have had many hard pre-seasons, especially when I started playing football in Serbia. We had like all-school coaches, one month without the ball with running. I don’t think Ole will do the same, so I’m not afraid [laughs].” 

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