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Manchester City are looking to make it two wins from two at the 2025 Club World Cup with their Group G clash against Al Ain.
Pep Guardiola has made 11 changes to the team that started Wednesday's 2-0 win against Wydad AC, utilising his strong side to offer a rest to his players at the end of a long season.
City will be hoping to join Juventus on six points at the top of Group G.
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1' Manchester City 0-0 Al Ain
The players are reading, the fans are ready, are you ready?
Well you better be — the final game of the second round of group-stage fixtures at this Club World Cup is underway!
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With just five minutes to go until we are due to kick off, the players are being introduced from the tunnel.
As we have seen throughout this tournament, they are coming out one by one.
The first of the teams to make their way out was Manchester City, with Erling Haaland getting a particularly strong ovation from the crowd in Atlanta.
Pep Guardiola spoke to DAZN upon arrival to Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
💬 “It is important for the players to be dynamic. We know that this is not a friendly game, today we have a huge opportunity to qualify for the next stage in this marvellous stadium. The heat and weather conditions will be better, so we can perform and take a result.”
There is still no Rodri in the starting XI for tonight's game, something Pep Guardiola explained in his pre-match press conference yesterday.
💬 “He’s getting better. We can’t forget, it’s almost nine months since the sad day what happened. It’s an injury between 10 and 12 months. It’s a long injury.
“He’s getting better and if he can play 20 to 30 minutes it’ll be good. I know he wants to be there but we need to protect him and him feel good in his knee.
“The minutes he played last game help and hopefully tomorrow too. Hopefully one day soon he can play from the beginning.”
Many brothers share a love of the same sport, even for the same football team.
Atlanta will witness that at tonight's match, pitting not just two brothers against one another for 90 minutes but the president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against its deputy president.
One of the most prominent sons of the founding father of the Gulf nation is Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, best known in the sports world for his purchase of Manchester City in 2008.
He is vice-president of the UAE and deputy prime minister of Abu Dhabi. The person who handed him that title? Elder brother, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan — known as MBZ.
He is the president of the UAE, ruler of its capital Abu Dhabi, and president of Al Ain, who play in the city of that name in the latter emirate. Al Ain are very much, like the levers of power in the UAE, a family affair.
So hopefully no bickering in the owners' box tonight!
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There are lots of Manchester City jersey here inside and outside the stadium, feels like more than there were in Philadelphia.
Haaland really is the superstar now, though. The reaction he gets anytime the camera goes on him is hysterical.
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Gianni Infantino is brushing off early criticisms of the Club World Cup this summer.
The FIFA president, speaking on a small stage at Fanatics Fest in Manhattan this weekend, backed the expanded competition, suggesting any hiccups over its opening week are to be expected because of its novelty.
“So, maybe some criticize it a little bit, but it’s something new. It’s something special. It’s a real World Cup with the best teams and the best players.”
The tournament has been condemned on multiple fronts. Global player organization FIFPro were outspoken in the additional demands an expanded tournament places on professionals, and, over the past week, several games featured large sections of empty seating as ticket sales failed to reach the kind of level Infantino would have hoped for.
“It was about time that somebody invented a World Cup for club teams,” Infantino said. “Since 100 years, we know which is the best country in the world, but, until today, we do not really know which is the best team in the world. So, we thought it might not be a bad idea to create a World Cup for teams to decide.”
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FIFA president Gianni Infantino hits back at Club World Cup criticism: ‘It’s something special’
The full-time whistle has just gone at Audi Field in Washington, DC and the points have been shared by RB Salzburg and Al Hilal.
Both teams had chances to win it and will probably come away from the capital feeling frustrated not to have stolen the points, but it keeps them both alive in this tournament.
The result leaves RB Sazlburg second in Group H with Real Madrid left to play while Al Hilal are third, two points back, but with Pachuca to play in their last group game.
There aren't many names that will be recognisable to football fans outside of the United Arab Emirates in the Al Ain squad.
One of those that is very familiar, though, is Rui Patricio. The 108-time Portugal international had a debut to forget on Wednesday as he shipped five goals in the defeat to Juventus.
Despite being a big signing coming into this tournament, he has been dropped from the starting XI along with five outfield players.
UAE international Khalid Eisa has been restored to his position in goal and will make his 394th appearance for the club this evening.
The opening game was a real disappointment for Al Ain as they were stuffed 5-0 by Juventus, so there are six changes to the starting XI for tonight's game:
Pep Guardiola said he’d change ten players yesterday. He’s gone one better. Stefan Ortega comes in for Ederson in goal and means it’s an entirely new XI from the team that beat Wydad.
Rayan Ait-Nouri makes his debut at left-back following his move from Wolves, Nico Gonzalez comes in at the base of midfield with Matheus Nunes and Claudio Echeverri out wide supporting Erling Haaland.
Bernardo Silva captains the side after his appointment as Kevin de Bruyne’s replacement.
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The benefit of having such a strong squad is that you can make wholesale changes — Pep Guardiola has completely changed the team that won on Wednesday:
Real Madrid defender Antonio Rudiger was allegedly racially abused by Pachuca captain Gustavo Cabral during today Club World Cup Group H fixture.
Rudiger, 32, alerted referee Ramon Abatti following the alleged comment in stoppage time of Madrid’s 3-1 victory in Charlotte and the match official subsequently performed FIFA’s protocol gesture to signal alleged racist abuse.
Cabral, 39, denied making a racist comment. Real Madrid head coach Xabi Alonso said that an investigation into the incident was under way.
“Toni has told us something, the FIFA protocol is activated and an investigation is under way,” Alonso said during his post-match press conference. “We believe him. It is unacceptable.”
In denying he had used racist language, Cabral said to reporters: “It was a fight, we collided, he said that I hit him with my hand and then there was an argument and the referee made the sign of racism. In Argentina we say “cagon de mierda” (a profanity used to call someone a coward), all the time I told him the same thing.”
After being told of Cabral’s explanation, Rudiger’s camp reiterated his position to The Athletic. The Athletic has contacted FIFA for comment.
Read more below
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The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup is a little different with 32 teams competing — when the previous 20 editions never brought together more than eight clubs each.
Still, the legacy of those early years will continue and a host of famous names will be looking to add to their previous victories.
Here are the most successful clubs in this competition’s history:
Reigning champions City will be hoping to add to that 2023 title two years later in this summer's tournament.
With the Club World Cup entering its second week, fans and spectators from around the world are learning just how chaotic summer weather can be in the United States.
Weather has become a major focal point of the tournament, with four matches in four days experiencing weather-related delays that have at times suspended play for as long as two hours.
Severe weather, such as extreme heat in Los Angeles or sudden thunderstorms in Orlando, is par for the course for Americans during the summer months of June and July and will likely mirror what we’ll see at the men’s World Cup in 2026.
“What you’re seeing right now is very typical. This is not unusual at all,” Ben Schott, operations chief with the National Weather Service, told The Athletic on Friday. “Next year, we may be going through the same thing.”
Schott has been working closely with FIFA and organizers over the past eight months to prepare for next year, and is also overseeing his agency’s planning for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
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John Stones has committed his future to Manchester City after admitting he questioned whether there was a way back from some “dark days” during a 2024-25 season ravaged by foot and hamstring injuries.
It limited him to only 13 starts in all competitions and the influx of new defenders in the last two transfer windows led to speculation as to whether he could be allowed to leave before his contract expires next summer.
💬 “I’m here, I want to stay here, I love it. I’m here to help the team. I don’t know what’s been said or speculated, but I hope that kind of shuts it down.”
Stones, 31, also admitted he found the difficulty of diagnosing and treating his injury problems mentally challenging, before continuing to say the Club World Cup gives him an opportunity to get back to top shape.
“I feel great, I’m back fit, ready to help the team when called upon. Now I’ve put that behind me and used this as a mini introduction before the new season and another trophy for us to hopefully win and get some game time.”
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It was a comfortable and confident win for Juventus in the first match of the competition, a 5-0 thrashing of a disappointing Al Ain.
First-half goals from Francisco Conceicao and Kenan Yildiz, bookended by a Randal Kolo Muani double, saw the Italian side 4-0 up at half-time and the game essentially wrapped up.
Conceicao added his second just before the hour mark to make it a five-star opening win for Juve.
The Emirati side will do well to avoid a similar result against the strength of City today.
It has been another busy day here in the United States at the Club World Cup. This is the fourth and final match on the second Sunday while there is one going on in Nashville as we speak.
In the first game, Juventus were convincing winners against Wydad AC before 10-man Real Madrid saw off Pachuca.
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Manchester City's opening 2-0 win against Wydad AC, of Morocco, was less convincing than it appeared. Wydad actually played pretty well in the first half generally, but were stung by goals right at the beginning and end of the half.
Phil Foden capitalised on a goalkeeping error to volley home in the second minute, with Jeremy Doku poking in from a corner three minutes before the break.
Despite Wydad's consistent threat on the counter-attack, they weren't able to find the net, and City held out for a clean sheet, even with Rico Lewis sent off for a sliding tackle on Samuel Obeng late on.
You can't criticise City too much for three points and a clean sheet with a rotated side, but… their defensive vulnerabilities against Wydad will offer encouragement to some of the better sides in the competition, for sure.