Manchester United face San Jose Earthquakes at the Avaya Stadium in their second pre-season encounter. Louis van Gaal has promised to start with the same line-up as Club America with Sam Johnstone expected to play the entire game due to David de Gea and Anders Lindegaard both being injured.
The new signings made all the headlines last week, especially Morgan Schneiderlin who scored the only goal against Club America with United winning 1-0 in Seattle. However, MLS side San Jose Earthquakes go into the game on the back of a defeat versus LA Galaxy so they will be hoping to give their fans something to shout about.
The Earthquakes also suffered a defeat in a friendly against Club America recently, so without seeing much of them previously United should have no issues regardless of the Americans being in better shape fitness wise.
Sam Johnstone, a 22-year-old goalkeeper that has been at United since 2009 as a youth, performed brilliantly against Club America and will now get a chance to play a full game between the sticks for Louis van Gaal’s side. Whether David de Gea is injured or not, nobody knows other than the staff and Dave himself, but as the transfer window drags on it looks increasingly likely that he will be signing for La Liga giants Real Madrid.
All of the fans attending or tuning in will be hopeful of seeing the new signings in full flow again. More minutes for Memphis Depay, Morgan Schneiderlin and Matteo Darmian would be great, whereas Bastian Schweinsteiger is not expected to feature until the season half.
Also, a bit of history concerning both clubs. Manchester United legend George Best joined San Jose Earthquakes in 1980 and their fans will remember him fondly for scoring one of the greatest goals the club has seen. Watch below.
“That is the greatest soccer goal I have ever seen.” Blimey.
Anyway, hopefully the lads come away without any injuries. San Jose Earthquakes should be less vicious than the crowd we faced last week. It is a friendly after all.
