Pep Guardiola Not a Fan of Manchester City’s Pre-Season Tour In USA – ‘I’d Love Not To Go But..’

Pep Guardiola has historically been lamenting about Manchester City’s fixture congestion. Guardiola was outraged after his squad was forced to play in the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea within two days after losing to Real Madrid in the Champions League. Anyhow, a busy schedule won’t leave the Cityzens in the coming season either. Well, busy days will dawn for the Sky Blues before the 2024-25 season, as they fly to the US for an elaborate pre-season tour. Guardiola, concerned about players’ health, is not so interested in a cross-continental tour.

Though Pep Guardiola sounded concerned about City’s US tour, he couldn’t help but be a pragmatist. While revealing his disinterest in the pre-season campaign, Guardiola also spoke of its benefits. “I would say I would love to not go to another continent to play, have one more week holiday, train here,” said Guardiola. The Spanish boss added, “But we have to understand the clubs, not just ManCity, all clubs. They need that financial resources to be sustainable and to do it.”

This marks Manchester City’s second tour to the United States in two years. City’s 2022 American tour was rather a short campaign. They only played Bayern Munich and Mexico’s Club America, two years back. In the upcoming tour in July, Guardiola’s men will see the busiest of pre-season actions. The defending Premier League champions will play four games across the United States as a prelude to the 2024-25 season.

Pep Guardiola and Manchester City to face Barcelona and others in the US

Manchester City announced their pre-season US tour schedule last month. As per the fixture, City will kick-start the tour on July 23 by playing Scottish League champions Celtic at Kenan Stadium, Chapel Hill. Then, New York’s Yankee Stadium will host a Manchester City-AC Milan tie on 27 July. These European powerhouses meet again for the first time in 10 years. Notably, their last meeting also took place in the US, in Pittsburgh, in 2014. Thereafter, the Man City entourage flies to Orlando to face Pep Guardiola’s former team Barcelona on July 30 at the Camping World Stadium.

Guardiola’s men play their final US game on August 03 in Ohio. The Ohio stadium, with a capacity of over 100,000 fans, will host an all-English Manchester City-Chelsea clash on the said day. City, notably registered a sell-out crowd when they played Bayern Munich in 2022 in the US. It is no surprise because that was a clash of powerhouses. Yet again, the Sky Blues have a similar array of heavyweight clashes in their pipeline. So similar sell-out crowds can be expected in Man City’s upcoming American trip.