Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has dedicated his new club's Community Shield win over Leicester City to predecessor Louis van Gaal.
United beat Claudio Ranieri's Premier League champions 2-1 at Wembley on Sunday thanks to Zlatan Ibrahimovic's late headed winner, but Mourinho was quick to thank the Dutchman for his role in the triumph.
Victory in Van Gaal's final game in charge - the FA Cup final against Crystal Palace - qualified United's for the season curtain raiser, and the point was not lost on the 53-year-old.
"First of all, if you will allow me I want to dedicate the victory to Louis van Gaal because without him we wouldn't be here celebrating. He won the FA Cup to allow us to be here today. So I dedicate it to him and to my seven players who didn't play today. It was very hard to see players like Depay, Phil Jones, Ashley Young not playing."
The Red Devils came out on top despite Jamie Vardy netting early in the second half to cancel out Jesse Lingard's opener, and Mourinho added that Leicester's performance had given his side a real test - especially in an injury-time phase which saw goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel spend much of the time in attack.
"They brought an intensity to the game which was difficult for us to cope with," he added. "We recovered the balance, and when you score almost at the end it is always a bit lucky but we were almost in control.
"In the last five minutes it was a nightmare. Schmeichel is a goalkeeper but he was clearly watching videos of his dad, and at right-back they have someone who looked like Rory Delap with the long throw-ins but it was Luis Hernandez."
"It is an important victory but, of course, we have lots of work to do. Some of these guys have been in training for one week, [Anthony] Martial, Ibrahimovic, [Marouane] Fellaini – it's not a full pre-season.
"But it is always important to start with a trophy."
Despite Ibrahimovic netting the winning goal on his first competitive appearance for United, Mourinho expects the Swedish striker to offer more in coming weeks and saved some words of praise for new centre-back Eric Bailly.
"Zlatan will be more dangerous when we're more dominant and play closer to the box," he said.
"He is not a player to play 50 metres from the box and be dangerous. He needs them [United team-mates] to produce for him and we need to change that, this team was more about possession and recycling the ball.
"We are trying to change and the second goal is a great example of that.
"Bailly was the perfect opponent for them [Vardy and Ahmed Musa] because he is as fast as they are.
"You have a question mark when players come from a different level, but without [Chris] Smalling, the way he played was really good, but Daley [Blind] gave him the stability he needed."
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