Club World Cup is key for Guardiola as he plots Manchester City revival

Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, 18 June, 5pm local time: when Manchester City wander out for their opening Fifa Club World Cup Group G game against Wydad AC, the 2025-26 campaign begins for Pep Guardiola.

The Premier League’s opening day may be 16 August but if the Club World Cup exists in a quasi-no-man’s land of post-season, close-season or pre-pre-season, for the Catalan the inaugural 32-team tournament fires the starting pistol on next season, an attempt to fix the wrongs of 2024-25, and a push to reestablish City as a relentless force. As he says: “I’m pretty sure next season we’ll be better.”

What intrigues is the XI the 54-year-old will send out against the 22-times Moroccan champions. Unlike the phoney war of summer tour matches, the Club World Cup is a competition Guardiola and City fiercely want to win, and offers the chance to arrive on Premier League opening weekend with the scars of finishing potless for the first time in eight years healed.

They may also have a fresh blueprint already proved (hopefully) via a competition that also features Real Madrid, Internazionale, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Flamengo and Palmeiras, and which may have Guardiola’s men battle-hardened by seven matches should they reach the final on 13 July. Imagine, too, how buoyant City will be should they end as victors – suddenly 2025 will be a successful year.

A glance at Group G points to victory in the final match against Juventus at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium meaning swerving Madrid in the last 16 (if the Spanish giants claim Group H). Beat the Italians and one of Al Hilal, CF Pachuca or FC Salzburg will offer a less formidable barrier to the quarter-finals.

City and Juve can expect to arrive at their showdown with a maximum six points. While Wydad are three-time Caf Champions League victors, they have not won that competition or the league since 2022, with Mohamed Amine Benhachem’s side finishing third in the latter this term. Al Ain are the behemoths of the Emirati game, boasting a record 14 Pro League titles (but none for three years) and three AFC Champions League trophies (the last in 2016). Vladimir Ivic’s side finished fifth this term, 19 points behind the champions, Shabab Al Ahli Club.

After Wydad, City jet into Atlanta from their Boca Raton training base to face Al Ain on 23 June for a 9pm kick-off at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, before the clash with Juve three days later.

View image in fullscreen Rodri (right) spent most of last season on the sidelines with a long-term injury. Photograph: Marco Bello/Reuters

City have travelled not only without Kevin De Bruyne, who has departed for Napoli, but also without Kyle Walker and Jack Grealish, who are for sale. Factor too, Edersonbeing perhaps tempted by a move to Saudi Arabia, John Stones again battling against injury and question marks over Guardiola’s best options at full-back and the team to face Wydad may read: Stefan Ortega, Rico Lewis, Rúben Dias, Josko Gvardiol, Nico O’Reilly, Rodri, Ilkay Gündogan, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, Omar Marmoush, Erling Haaland. The new signings Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Aït-Nouri and Rayan Cherki will hope to feature too.

A prime issue Guardiola has to address was what to do if Rodri, again, sustains a long-term injury, and Reijnders appears to be part of that plan. Another is whether the De Bruyne-sized vacuum can be adequately filled by a Foden who was a non-event in 2024-25, though Cherki has been acquired to add fantasy too. Avoiding a repeat of last season’s slew of injuries will be important.

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On the right of the defence, Lewis and Matheus Nunes have been auxiliary solutions. On the other flank, Guardiola has made Aït-Nouri his first left-back signing since Benjamin Mendy in July 2017 (Mendy left in 2023). Last term, Gvardiol, a central defender by trade, and O’Reilly, a midfielder, were the main stand-ins on the left.

A Guardiola tenet is to ensure his side is “always there” in contention for the big prizes of the Premier League and Champions League when the spring days arrive. Last year, City patently were not. The 6-3 aggregate Champions League playoff-stage elimination administered by Real Madrid on 19 February was scant surprise to Guardiola because for months they were imposters of his record four-times consecutive title-winners, and 2022-23 treble-claiming immortals.

The sequence of nine losses, one win and three draws in 13 games from 30 October to 26 December was a dismal eight weeks that sent Guardiola a message he could not ignore: that he had been wrong to refuse the executive’s offer of a sizeable squad refresh last summer.

Instead, too late, this came in January, as Marmoush, Vitor Reis, Abdukodir Khusanov and Nico González were bought in a £172m unprecedented-for-City winter window splurge. Of the quartet only Marmoush has thus far proved his worth. Guardiola branded González as a “mini-Rodri” after his display in February’s 4-0 hammering of Newcastle, then instantly qualified it with a reminder that no one, of course, is the Spaniard.

So, another way has to be found. As does a route that circumvents the myriad injuries that hit Stones, Dias, Nathan Aké, Manuel Akanji, Oscar Bobb, Grealish, Ederson, Jérémy Doku, Mateo Kovacic, Haaland and others and which hobbled last year’s cause.

Next season will be a massive test of Guardiola’s powers. It begins at the Club World Cup.

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