were leaving/ would leave

Hello! Can you help me, please? It's about reported speech; look at the following:
She said, "They are leaving for the USA tomorrow".
If I had to turn it into reported speech, I'd say: She said they were leaving the day after.
According to a rule I've found in an English grammar recently, I should say "She said they would leave for the USA the day after".
That's sounds strange to me! What would you suggest I should say? I've always turned present continuous into past continuous while reporting someone else's words, and I suppose that the form "would leave" is acceptable, but "were leaving" is correct as well!
Thanks a lot in advance!:roll::-?;-)

Either sentence is OK. I'd say the next day rather than the day after.

There's yet another possible tense. You could say "She said they would be leaving the next day."

This is a rare case where your choice of tense won't affect the meaning. It might be guided by the context though.

GoesStation said:

There's yet another possible tense. You could say "She said they would be leaving the next day."

This is a rare case where your choice of tense won't affect the meaning. It might be guided by the context though.

Click to expand...

I prefer this one.

Or "... the following day."

Or, 'tomorrow'. You could be reporting the speech the day it was originally spoken.