3 things to watch for as Real Madrid take on Manchester United

Ladies and gentleman, 50 days after winning their 12th Champions League title, Real Madrid return to action this afternoon as they take on Manchester United from Santa Clara, California. Here are three things to watch in Real’s first ICC match.

How will Real Madrid’s youth perform?

While many fans will want to see Los Blancos open the season with a win, manager Zinedine Zidane is not so worried about the result, rather the individual performances of his young players.

Real have several young players coming into the team that Zidane will want to acclimate into the squad ahead of the team’s first competitive match against this same United team on August 8th in Macedonia. Players like Jesus Vallejo, Marcos Llorente, Borja Mayoral, and the new signings Theo Hernandez and Dani Ceballos.

These youngers players will certainly play a large role in this match, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple of the players get playing time, namely Mayoral who is vying for a backup position behind Karim Benzema after the departure of Alvaro Morata.

I’m very excited to see how both of the new signings, Ceballos and Theo, perform. Will Zidane start either of these guys? Probably not, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Theo come on as a sub as he has been training with the team since the beginning of the preseason workouts.

Dani, on the other hand, arrived in the US on Friday after being introduced at the Santiago Bernabeu on Thursday and is probably still getting acclimated to his new teammates and coaches.