US tourists and Maguire support - Inside Man Utd's low-key start to pre-season

The tourists milling around on Helsinki's stylish Pohjoisesplanadi are distracted by the barriers being erected outside the grand Hotel Kamp and wondering what's going on. The sight of no more than a dozen fans wearing Manchester United shirts give it away.

One American family hang around to see what the fuss is all about. 'It's Manchester United', the father says to his son. 'They're one of the biggest soccer teams in the world'. The boy doesn't seem too bothered. The World Cup hasn't quite conquered all of a country of 342 million.

This is one of the more low-key starts to pre-season United have had in recent years. They could have gone to Asia this summer, and had they checked into a hotel in Shanghai, Seoul or Sapporo, they would have been mobbed. At 8pm on a Friday night in Helsinki, the diners enjoying the late evening sunshine outside their hotel barely interrupt their cocktails and reindeer steaks to see what is happening.

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To get it, it's a simple one-two punch.

Harry Maguire is first off the bus and is stopped for a selfie by a few fans. After the 33-year-old centre-back comes a stream of the younger players involved at the start of pre-season, and the hubbub dies down. 'They all look so young,' says one tourist. They are.

United decided to move on to Finnish time for their trip, despite Helsinki being two hours ahead of Manchester and only staying in the country for around 26 hours. After training at Carrington on Friday, the squad flew around 3pm UK time, with Tyler Fredricson left behind as he prepares to complete a permanent transfer away from Old Trafford.

They landed at the same time as the Wrexham squad and went through passport control together in the private terminal. The Dragons' assistant David Jones is a former United youngster who played with Tom Heaton at Burnley. Some other staff members at Wrexham are relatively recent recruits from Old Trafford, so friendly greetings are exchanged.

United players held a meet-and-greet with some supporters at their hotel on Friday night and went for a walk on Saturday morning ahead of a 6pm kick-off. There were fan events across the city from Thursday to Saturday morning, which, while reasonably well attended, lacked the fervour of Norway, where United have huge support.

This was United's first visit to Finland since 1981, but a 45-year absence didn't seem to have whipped supporters into a frenzy. That was evident in a crowd of 20,000, which meant the promoters had only just broken even on the event. There were more than 16,000 empty seats at the Olympic Stadium and the action lacked intensity and entertainment. Less than 100 yards away, HJK were taking on VPS in Finland's top division and some supporters will have attended both games, with the domestic action beginning at 3pm.

The atmosphere throughout was subdued, despite some attempts from a small handful of supporters to get chants going. Clearly, some locals are United mad, given one made a dart for the pitch at full-time to try and get a selfie with Toby Collyer. The biggest cheers were reserved for Maguire, which is quite the transformation after the centre-back had previously been booed in pre-season in Melbourne and Dublin.

It was clear that Wrexham were ahead of United in pre-season, having been back in training longer, while they played Wisla Krakow in Poland last week. They had a little more intensity and fluency to their game.

The high point for the United fans in attendance was a first sighting of Andrey Santos, with the £50million man showing enough in 45 minutes to suggest he could offer something different in midfield. He walked down the cramped corridor towards the exit at the Olympic Stadium along with Leny Yoro and Bryan Mbeumo, with the trio shepherded to meet some VIP guests from Adidas on their way out.

United then headed straight for the airport and back to Manchester and the familiar surroundings of Carrington. On Thursday, they will do it all again as they head to Trondheim and a clash with Rosenborg.