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Aitor Karanka is excited about the prospect of pitting his wits against his mentor Jose Mourinho .

From 2010-13, the Middlesbrough FC boss was the Special One’s assistant at Real Madrid, where he forged a firm friendship.

It was Mourinho - then in his second stint as Chelsea head coach - who recommended Karanka to Boro chairman Steve Gibson in October 2013 following the departure of Tony Mowbray.

Now the Portuguese is in charge of Manchester United, who host Boro at Old Trafford on December 31 with the return fixture scheduled for March 18 at the Riverside Stadium.

With the huge media interest in the relationship between Mourinho and Karanka, there’s a strong possibility one or both of those games will be shown live on television.

From the Boro boss’s perspective, he’s still coming to terms with the fact that he’ll be standing in a technical area on the side of the same pitch as Mourinho.

“If you’d have told me six years ago when I first started working with Jose - I couldn’t imagine that one day I would be playing with him at Old Trafford,” Karanka told www.mfc.co.uk .

“We are very good friends, and it’s very exciting.”