Mainoo: Intensity was a huge challenge when I first joined the senior squad

Ahead of Manchester United's Champions League match against Atlético Madrid this week, Seedorf visited the Carrington training base and interviewed Mainoo for Amazon Prime Video. In the first part of their conversation (due to its length, we've divided it into three sections), the two discussed the beginnings of their respective careers.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

You too.

Finally, we meet. I promised I'd come.

Yes, and you also promised me a jersey. (laughs)

I've wanted to come here for a long time, and I even had a chance to play here.

So why didn't you come?

I ended up going to Inter.

Oh?

At the time, Lippi was the coach – I don't know if you remember him, the Italian World Cup-winning coach – he called me and said: "Seedorf, do you want to come and play behind Ronaldo and Vieri?" I said yes, I packed my bags and came right away. I was more familiar with Italy, which is probably why I chose Inter. But you grew up here.

That's right.

So tell me, what's it like to enter the academy and finally realize your dream of moving up to the first team?

Starting with a football dream in Manchester, being able to join the academy and those talent development centers, the pitches were basically large halls with wooden floors, and after graduating...

More like a futsal court?

Yes, like a futsal court. Then we moved to the Cliff training base, and the coaches would tell us stories about the players and legendary stars who had played there. There was also Littleton Road training ground. When we were about twelve or thirteen, we came to Carrington.

That's when you really felt that the first team was right there. Sometimes you'd see first-team players walk by, see their cars drive by. The coaches told us the first team was "the promised land," that's what we all called it.

You made your debut at 17, right?

That's right, 17.

I was 16.

I know.

It's not an easy path. People think it's all easy, coming in at a young age, but you can feel quite lost, wondering: "What's happening?" You're surrounded by adults. I remember when I made my debut at Ajax, everything felt normal yet like a dream. Physically, I struggled a lot, I don't know if you did, the intensity of the game was really high.

Exactly, the game's tempo is completely different. It's most evident on the training ground. When I was sixteen or seventeen, I trained with the first team every day but didn't necessarily play. In team training, you had Varane, Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes.

The speed of ball circulation, adapting to that was my biggest challenge. The training intensity was very high. During the period with Ten Hag and Van Nistelrooy leading the team, training sessions were extremely rigorous, but they were also the highest quality training I've ever experienced. High-intensity, confrontational training – that period helped me grow a lot.

We should talk about academy stories first. You were just saying you had indoor pitches.

Yes, a third-generation artificial turf indoor pitch, outdoor pitches, and a cage pitch. If we were told we were training on the cage pitch today, everyone would be excited because it was basically playing games, like three-team round-robin tournaments.

Our pitches back then weren't as good as this, more like a carpet. But we also had indoor halls. After school, we'd go early, draw a goal on a brick wall, and practice shooting and passing against the wall. We'd train for about two hours before the actual training. I was around thirteen or fourteen at the time, those were good times.

We have similar memories, happy days. Every time we came to training, the pitch wasn't even set up yet. We'd throw down our bags, quickly change, and just get straight onto the field.