The coaches of the four teams in the "World Series of Football" -- Peter Nowak, Dave Sarachin, Carlo Ancelotti, and Jose Mourinho, are doing a joint media conference call at 1:30pm today. You can listen in from the DCU website.
So what happened? Was there anything important said (big euro-names not coming, etc.), or was it the usual standard coach-speak?
It was the usual standard coach-speak, ("we always play to win", "we have respect for every team we play", "don't get many chances to see US teams because we're so busy watching other DE/NL/FR/SP/PG clubs' since during the season we're always playing against teams from those countries"), that sort of stuff. Both Mourinho and Ancelotti reaffirmed that they will be fielding their first team squads -- other than one or two of their players (can't remember all the names) who've been playing recently and are still owed some vacation days off. Now, they didn't specify exactly which games they'd be fielding their first teams for (it could very well be only in their head to head games), but they both basically said it was highly important for their teams to have gelled before the start of their club seasons next month. Sarachan and Nowak didn't say much other than some niceties towards the other teams and that their players were looking forward to the challenge... blah blah blah. I for one would have liked to heard Nowak say something like, "We must crush you!", a la Ivan Drago, but it didn't happen.
The latter. Mourinho was quizzed a couple of times on whether the big boys will be coming (yes, he's bringing the roster released) and whether they'll be playing (he's going to try to put his best team on the pitch each match, but because of fatigue or strains the lineups may change). All the press questions were for Mourinho and Ancelotti, unsurprisingly; both got the "how familiar are you with MLS?" ("not much, since we never play anyone from there") questions.