Man City vs Al Ain Preview: Team News & Prediction | 2025 FIFA Club World Cup | Group Stage
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Manchester City are in the midst of a rebuild as they continue their 2025 FIFA Club World Cup group stage campaign with a clash against a poor Al Ain side.
Kick-off date/time:
How to watch on TV & online: UK – DAZN & Channel 5 / US – DAZN
Man City team news: Lewis suspended
Manchester City named a side without the likes of Rodri and Erling Haaland in their opener. Pep Guardiola appeared to want to go ‘all out attack’ with the likes of Phil Foden and Rayan Cherki operating in midfield. Rico Lewis was sent off, though.
Predicted XI (4-1-4-1): Ederson; Stones, Reis, Ake, O’Reilly; Reijnders; Savio, Foden, Cherki, Doku; Haaland
Unavailable: Lewis (Suspended)
Questionable:
Al Ain team news: Fully fit
Ahead of their clash with Manchester City, Al Ain have a fully fit and available squad. However, there may well be a desire to make some changes after they were annihilated by Juventus the other day.
Predicted XI (3-5-2): Patricio; Ratnik, Rabia, Autonne; Traore, Alejandro Romero, Park, Palacios, Zabala; Rahimi, Laba
Unavailable:
Questionable:
Key stats
- This is the first FIFA club competition match between teams from England and the United Arab Emirates.
- Manchester City have won their previous three FIFA club competition matches without conceding a goal.
- City have won ten of their last 15 matches in all competitions (W10 D3 L2).
- Pep Guardiola has won nine successive matches in FIFA club competitions (3 x Man City, 2 x Bayern, 4 x Barcelona) and his teams have kept clean sheets in their last seven matches (3 x Man City, 2 x Bayern, 2 x Barcelona).
- City fielded five players aged 21 and under in their starting line-up against Wydad.
- The average age of City’s starting XI in their opening match was 24.3 – only Salzburg (22.7) started with a younger team in the opening round of matches.
- Al Ain started their game against Juventus with ten different nationalities on the pitch.
- Al Ain ‘keeper Rui Patrício played alongside Man City’s Bernardo Silva, Matheus Nunes and Rúben Dias for the Portuguese national team prior to his retirement from international football in 2024. All four were in Portugal’s squad at the FIFA World Cup in 2022.
- Al Ain’s Rui Patrício spent three seasons with English Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers (2018/19 – 2020/21) and faced City six times during that period (W2 D1 L3). The Portuguese keeper was also in a Sporting CP team that eliminated City on away goals in the UEFA Europa League round of 16 in 2011/12 – he kept a clean sheet in a 1-0 home win in the first leg; City won 3-2 in the return fixture.
- City’s Omar Marmoush and Al Ain’s Ramy Rabia are teammates for the Egyptian national team.
Man City vs Al Ain prediction
Manchester City brought in several new faces before the start of the tournament after a busy winter transfer window, too. It would be fair to suggest it may well take its time to settle, though, and their performance was underwhelming as they eased past Wydad Casablanca by two goals to nil the other day with Phil Foden showing signs of form.
They now face an Al Ain side that appeared half-decent when they qualified under the management of Hernan Crespo, but things have drifted with former Watford boss Vladimir Ivic at the helm. They were 4-0 down at half-time against Juventus the other day, before going on to lose by five goals to nil.
Al Ain are an underwhelming side and appear a bit of a rabble, so Manchester City will be expected to once again run out as fairly comfortable victors in this one.
Man City vs Al Ain tip: Man City to win -2 handicap
