Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has insisted that it is "very important to lose a match in pre-season" following Wednesday night's 1-0 defeat to Barcelona in the International Champions Cup.

United have beaten Los Angeles Galaxy, Real Salt Lake, Manchester City and Real Madrid during their pre-season tour of the United States, but the Red Devils lost their final tour game against Barcelona at the FedEx Field.

Mourinho, however, has taken the positives from the one-goal reverse, insisting that his team will learn from their mistakes ahead of the start of the new campaign.

"It's very important to lose a match in pre-season. You don't like to lose but I think it's very important. I think it would be very bad for us to leave the US without a defeat, playing against teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, it would be very bad to go home with just victories," Mourinho told reporters.

"So the defeat is good. But I think in the game we did some very good things and we did bad things. The very good things are to keep and the bad things are to improve."

United will now head back to England before facing Norwegian side Valerenga in Oslo on Sunday night.