Jose Mourinho has claimed Paul Pogba is the only Manchester United player at the level of Barcelona and Real Madrid's stars.
United were narrowly beaten 1-0 by Barcelona in Washington in their final tour game of their pre-season trip to the USA with Brazilian star Neymar grabbing the only goal of a tight contest at FedExField.
Before jetting back to Manchester Mourinho said: “I think in this moment the best players are in these two clubs Barcelona and Madrid and you have to accept that as a reality.
“Look at Messi and Neymar. There is only one Messi and one Neymar. And one Suarez, Iniesta, Pique, Ronaldo, Bale, Modric, Toni Kroos. There is only one each of those players.
“So they can only be playing for a club not two clubs. We can't have them, they belong to their clubs.
“But you can be working very hard tactically to improve your players.
Sometimes, though, there are players that are special players and there is just nothing you can do.
“When the matches are real matches, you try to compensate the difference in quality with a certain tactical organisation and with that you can win in football, it's possible.
“A team is in a certain day better than the sum of the parts - that's possible in football.
But the parts are amazing and their relation with the ball is amazing at Barcelona and Real Madrid.
“You can argue about occupation of spaces and speak about all of that, but the relation with the ball is still the most important thing.
“And as an opponent on the bench, like I am, it is beautiful to see their relation with the ball but one of my players today, Paul Pogba - showed the level and he belongs to that level.”
Mourinho feels comparison's between his team and the La Liga forces he's faced on tour Stateside doesn't make so much sense.
“If you want to compare my team with Real Madrid or Barcelona it's easy to compare the level of the players.
“It's easy - but we don't play in the same competition as them unless we meet them in the European competitions, so we prefer not to compare us with them.
“We prefer to compare ourselves with the teams we play week in week out in the Premier League and we are much more adapted to that very hard competition.
“But it's a competition with a different style and player.
But for us to play against both Madrid and Barcelona in pre-season without any kind of pressure or being worried about a result and to play the best you can was very good for us on this tour.
“They both played with their best teams. I think only Gerard Pique was on the bench for Barcelona and Real Madrid were without Ronaldo and Ramos who didn't play, but everybody else did.”
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