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Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager, has said that winning the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 won’t reduce the disappointment of finishing last season, which ended for them without winning a major trophy in eight years. The 2024-25 season for Manchester City began with the Community Shield, but they were unable to defend their Premier League title, finishing third in the competition behind Liverpool and Arsenal.
Apart from that, Manchester City were ousted from the UEFA Champions League (UCL) in the round of 32 by Real Madrid across both legs, following which, they also ended up losing the FA Cup final second year in a row, this time against Crystal Palace. While the regular season ended in disappointment, Manchester City are currently taking part in the Club World Cup in the United States as one of two English clubs, the other one being Chelsea.
Manchester City defeated Wydad AC 2-0 in opening group stage match of FIFA Club World Cup 2025
In their opening Group G match of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025, Manchester City were able to defeat Wydad AC of Morocco 2-0 at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Ahead of their second Group G match against UAE club Al-Ain at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Sunday, June 22, Pep Guardiola addressed the media about the last season and what it will mean for his team to progress further in the ongoing tournament.
He was quoted as saying, as per BBC Sport, “I said many times, the season was not good. When you finish third in the Premier League to qualify for the Champions League, it means 70 teams were worse than us. 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 but my mindset at the moment is not about winning the competition. We can extend our time here, being here longer. For the South American teams, the competition may be the maximum. For European teams, it is [just] a World Cup,” said Pep Guardiola, potentially trying to reduce the pressure on his players in regards to expectations from the fans to progress further in the tournament at least.
