At the FIFA Club World Cup, Manchester City will play for the first time in ninety minutes when they play Urawa Red Diamonds of Japan in the semifinals.
After being held to a very disappointing 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace at the Etihad Stadium, Pep Guardiola and his team left Manchester Airport on Saturday night to travel to the Middle East.
The City manager will be hoping that his team has moved past their annoyances and is refocused in order to try to reach the highest level of club football in the FIFA Club World Cup, which is taking place in Jeddah.
The winners of the match between Urawa Red Diamonds and Manchester City will play Brazilian powerhouses Fluminense in the championship game on Friday night. The losers of the match on Tuesday night will play Al Ahly in the third place play-off that same day.
After completing his recuperation from hamstring surgery last summer, Kevin De Bruyne has returned to first-team training, giving Manchester City a significant boost even before they arrived in Saudi Arabia this week.
However, Pep Guardiola and his wider coaching staff might wait until later in the season to risk the Belgian midfielder, considering that playing in the FIFA tournament this week closer to the new year is a more realistic option than competing there.
The attacking duo, Erling Haaland and Jeremy Doku, are still sidelined for the current Champions League champions against Urawa Reds as they continue to recover from foot stress and muscular issues, respectively.
Both Pep Guardiola and Maciej Skorża, the manager of Urawa Red Diamonds, have confirmed their starting lineups ahead of Tuesday night’s kickoff in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Nishikawa, Ito, Hoibraten, Koizumi, Kante, Sekine, Akimoto, Iwao, Okubo, Yasui, and Scholz are the Urawa Red Diamonds starting XI.
Yoshida, Sakai, Iwanami, Linssen, Nakajima, Schalk, Shibato, Ogiwara, Panya, Koroki, and Ohata are the substitutes.
The starting lineup for Manchester City is as follows: Ederson, Walker, Stones, Rodri, Kovavic, Nunes, Grealish, Bernardo, and Foden.
Ortega, Carson, Dias, Phillips, Gomez, Alvarez, Gvardiol, Bobb, Alleyne, Susoho, Lewis, and Hamilton are the replacements.
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