Club World Cup 2025 Preview

The tournament is due to start this weekend, with matches taking place across the United States, and there are many reasons for Manchester City fans to be excited about it. Not that many would have been when the competition got announced, or even during last season, but getting to see the new version of the team has many fans now interested.

Of course, the prospect of seeing matchups from across the world has its appeal. So does seeing some of the most promising young players from South America in Estêvão (Palmeiras) and Franco Mastantuono (River Plate). Talents in Portugal you’ve not seen yet, like Rodrigo Mora and Martim Fernandes. There have been some big transfers this summer already, and for those fans, this is the first opportunity to see them. Huijsen and Alexander-Arnold to Real Madrid. Cherki, Reijnders, and Ait-Nouri to Manchester City. Delap, Santos, and Essugo to Chelsea. Jobe Bellingham has moved to Dortmund.

If you’re looking for a thorough breakdown of every team involved, then I’d recommend checking out the guide put together by The Copa Club. I contributed to the guide with the section on Manchester City, and you can find it linked here.

Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak spoke about the tournament in his end of 24/25 season interview, which you can find linked here. The message was quite clear: the club sees this as the start of the new season and a competition to take seriously. All the moves in the summer window, from the coaching staff to players, line up with that.

The coaching staff has been refreshed ahead of the tournament. Pepijn Lijnders was reported to have been contacted by Guardiola on May 27th. Although it had been thought about for a while, when Manchester City played Southampton (A), Guardiola spoke to Lallana about him. Phoned Klopp to receive more feedback. This was a coach he quite clearly wanted as part of the reshuffled team.

Lijnders has been appointed assistant coach, whilst James French joins as set-piece coach. French was also part of Liverpool, joining their back room team in 2012, and spending over a decade as a first-team opposition analyst.

Plenty of suggestions around how Lijnders could impact the pressing of Manchester City, who need to improve OOP next season, and deal with the opposition's counter-attacks better. During the 24/25 season, Manchester City (12.4) were far behind the likes of Arsenal (10.0) and Liverpool (10.3) for passes per defensive action. The lower the number, the more intense the press. Personnel is going to play a significant role in making that improvement.

One area, though, he should hopefully help the team be more efficient with the high turnovers. Last season, Manchester City led the PL for high turnovers (357) with Bournemouth. However, only 13.2% of those ended in a shot compared to 20.2% for the Cherries. They also managed to beat City on goal-ending high turnovers with 10 vs 6. When you’ve got Erling Haaland and Omar Marmoush in your team, you have to do better than that.

Although his tenure wasn’t a success, you can learn a lot about a manager through how he sets up his team. This is a good article from The Football Analyst on his RB Salzburg team.

Set-pieces are something City fans will have an eye for next season, as it’s a running joke about how ‘terrible’ they are at scoring from those situations. It becomes more ovbious when you’re fighting Arsenal in recent title races, who have used them to win plenty of games. James French arrives at a team that hasn’t been bad at defending them across the season, although some poor moments in there, like Walker vs Arsenal (H), but so much room to improve.

Only Brentford (2) conceded fewer set-piece goals than Manchester City (5) last season. They conceded the fewest shots (82) and xG (7.4). Second-lowest conversion rate (11.36%). Defensively, it’s about better communication, matchups, and decision-making in those situations. Getting your best defenders on the pitch more regularly. Small margins.

Attacking-wise, it’s a different story, and much bigger margins to improve. During the 24/25 season, Arsenal had 153 shots from set-pieces and scored 15 goals. That’s a 21.74% conversion rate. For Manchester City, it’s 151 shots taken and only 7 goals in return. Conversion rate of 9.72%.

Kolo Toure is another coach who has gone with the backroom staff to the Club World Cup. He spent last season working with the U18s, and previously worked with Leicester City as assistant to Brendan Rodgers. Unkown if he remains with the team for the season as reported by Jack Gaughan. This interview with the FA gives you an insight into his view on coaching.

Tijjani Reijnders (26) joins from AC Milan as the replacement for Ilkay Gundogan, the number eight playing box-to-box. Rayan Ait-Nouri (23) becomes the new Manchester City left-back. Rayan Cherki (21) is the creative spark the team needs for next season. Marcus Bettinelli (33), replacing Scott Carson as the third-choice goalkeeper, is another example of fresh faces in the dressing room.

By moving early and swiftly, all these players are involved in the Club World Cup, and have the opportunity to bed into the team right away. Guardiola can work with them and begin to make the changes to the team he wants. Although he’s not going to the Club World Cup, Sverre Nypan is an exciting young player Manchester City have picked up. To learn more, check out the article here.

All the quotes from the signings are very encouraging. Grateful for the opportunity, hungry for success, and determined to improve themselves at the club. That’s the right mix. The competition they’ll create should help to get the best out of others in the team.

The squad list submitted for the tournament is a clear sign of intent. To start the new season, get the time together with the new group, and aim to win it all. Notably, the squad size needs to be reduced for the coming season, and there is still work to do in the transfer market. So, some players you’ll be watching play in the US will depart before we play the first 25/26 PL match.

This minute’s graphic is especially relevant when we’re thinking about next season, most of the players with the most minutes are going to be moved on this summer or pushed down the pecking order for other players. That’ll shift the cluster on the right side back towards the peak ages in the middle.

The final point to mention is that I'm intrigued to see how Guardiola chooses to set up next season, and in the Club World Cup, we'll get the first look. The box midfield everyone remembers from The Treble-winning season, with John Stones stepping into midfield. Built on the early appearances of Rico Lewis, like against Chelsea (A). Continued into 23/24 with either Walker or Gvardiol advancing down the flank to let a winger move inside. Towards the end, we saw that the system began to be figured out by the opposition with variations on the 4-2-4 to stifle progression centrally. The FA Cup semifinal (Chelsea) and Final (United) are good examples of this.

At the start of the 24/25 season, we saw Guardiola using a 3-1-6 with Gvardiol/Akanji expected to cover the channels, Lewis advancing, and Mateo Kovacic as the lone six. It gave City plenty of options to play through the lines at the expense of their rest defense. Increasing the space for the defenders to cover. If the opposition let City progress more easily down the flank, covering the central players, then Gvardiol/Akanji had to move increasingly wider, which opened up the space to counterattack.

A staple of a Guardiola team is the counter-press, but how are you meant to do that successfully with your rest defense depleted and spread apart like that?

In seeking a solution to progress the ball and attack the opposition, Guardiola had made the team more susceptible in transitions.

Towards the backend of the 24/25 season, we saw Manchester City use a 4-2-2-2 of sorts where the full-backs provided the width. They were responsible for choosing how much risk to take, often more reserved on the weaker side. The box of Gvardiol, Dias, Kovacic, and Bernardo became a consistent selection to manage risk and defend the transitions.

Now, when we look towards the 25/26 season, I'd expect to see similarities to that setup and improvements in the personnel. Learning the correct time to take a risk, where you need to be positioned off the ball, and the connection with teammates will take time. O'Reilly > Ait-Nouri Gundogan > Reijnders Kovacic > Rodri Nunes/Lewis > Livramento McAtee/De Bruyne > Cherki Finding the right balance between the front 5 attackers and 5 players in the rest defense will be key to Manchester City competing for the Premier League title next season. How it all fits together, we'll find out in the CWC and next season. 

It’s hard to gauge your predictions of the tournament without knowing the quality difference we’ll see, and how seriously other European teams take it. I’d imagine they will, given how much you can earn from progressing far. For Manchester City, they should be getting out of the group in first place and expecting to at least reach the Semifinals.