ATLANTA — There are flexes, and then there’s the “swapping out your entire lineup and still annihilating the opposition” flex. Manchester City rolled out a completely new lineup on Sunday night against UAE’s Al Ain, but the result was the same as Wednesday’s match against Morocco’s Wydad AC: a 6-0 victory, a second straight clean sheet, a path straight into the Club World Cup’s knockout stage … and a definitive statement of just how dangerous City will be in the coming months.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has the luxury of being able to run out two entire sides in this tournament, both of which clearly could advance deep into the tournament on their own. He took full advantage of his embarrassment of riches — both monetary and roster-wise — to put City in position to overwhelm the overmatched Al Ain from the opening minutes of the match.
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The result was everything that the delirious, heavily City crowd at Mercedes-Benz Stadium could have wanted … and, not coincidentally, everything that FIFA hopes the Club World Cup can be. This was one of the world’s premier sides operating at full, relentless effect, and the crowd inside the stadium, while nowhere near sellout territory, was nonetheless the loudest and most engaged of Atlanta’s three matches to date.
Manchester City needed a victory to advance out of Group G and into the knockout stage, thanks to City’s 2-0 Wednesday win over Wydad AC, as well as Al Ain’s 0-5 thrashing at the hands of Juventus. Granted, this wasn’t expected to be an especially difficult task; City were favored at -900 prior to kickoff.
That expected margin for error allowed Guardiola to experiment with his lineup, allowing for some rest with the final group match looming against Juventus on Thursday. More importantly for the long view, Guardiola gave several of his new young players an opportunity for a start — and a chance to work out some nerves and show some flair — in international play. It was a strategy that paid off quickly.
Against Wydad AC, City scored in just two minutes thanks to Phil Foden’s early strike. Against Al Ain, City took a bit longer — another six minutes, to be exact — before Ilkay Gündogan looped in a beautiful chip
Later in the first half, at the 27-minute mark, Claudio Echeverri, making his City debut, fired an electrifying free kick past a stumbling Khalid Eisa:
From there, with the outcome effectively assured, City played the hits. Erling Haaland coolly drilled a penalty kick to close out the first half:
At that point, City could focus on Group G’s goal differential. Juventus’ two mammoth wins — by scores of 5-0 and 4-1 — meant that City would need to keep the throttle down in the second half.
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But this is where the flaw in Guardiola’s wholesale roster swap became apparent. City could overwhelm Al Ain on pure talent, but the execution was choppy and, at times, even sloppy. Al Ain couldn’t take advantage of City’s mistakes, but a more talented side surely could have. City’s problems weren’t fatal ones, just errors of flow — exactly the kind of miscues Guardiola wants to work out in this setting, rather than a Champions League one.
Haaland came within inches of scoring his second goal of the night, and in the 73rd minute, Gündogan did convert his own second goal, weaving his way through the defense and nudging in a beauty:
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Oscar Bobb added City’s fifth goal of the night in the 84th minute, and Rayan Cherki added a sixth in the 89th minute. That was the capstone on a thorough beatdown that saw City hold substantial advantages in possession (74%-26%), shots (21-4) and shots on goal (11-1). Thanks to the late second-half flurry, City are now deadlocked with Juventus in differential at eight apiece heading into their Thursday match in Orlando.
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Manchester City stand as the defending champions in the Club World Cup, though recent history has been less kind for the elite side. This season marked the first time in eight years that City didn’t bring home a major trophy, finishing third in the Premier League, falling early in the Champions League, and losing in the FA Cup final to Crystal Palace.
“I said many times, the season was not good,” Guardiola said in a press conference the day before the Al Ain match. “We played the FA Cup final in an incredibly high level against a really good team. The disappointment was the Champions League, we did not do really good. It was tough to handle it. Winning this competition is not going to change that.”
City treating the Club World Cup as a splashy offseason workout program might not sit well with some of the other clubs in the tournament, which would like nothing more than to stick it to an elite Premier League squad. But given the prominence and provenance of European sides, it’s not an entirely improper framing.
For City, a Club World Cup repeat would be a pleasant and welcome victory, but the real goals are about a year in the future. While other squads are trying to win in the next few weeks, Manchester City is putting the pieces in place for 2026. That prospect should make quite a few clubs more nervous than they already are.
