Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City players have the highest chance of facing either Borussia Dortmund or Atletico Madrid from pot two in the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
The group stage draw for the 2025 Club World Cup will take place in Miami, USA on Thursday 5 December at 13:00 local time and 19:00 CET, with FIFA outlining a short procedure around the draw itself.
FIFA explained, “The procedures feature several key principles to ensure competitive balance and geographical diversity throughout the group stage and, depending on sporting results, into the knockout stage.”
The draw, to be conducted as a live studio event, will be broadcasted around the globe via FIFA.com, FIFA+ and supporting channels, with Manchester City allocated into pot one following their 2023 UEFA Champions League success in Istanbul.
Full draw details including the procedure, how to watch, and what teams Manchester City can face from each of the three other pots can be found here, or below.
Ahead of the draw, an early indication as to who Manchester City may face has been revealed, based on data taken from 10 million simulations of proceedings to be undertaken in the United States later today.
That is according to data from Footantic on X, who reveals that Manchester City hold a 15.7 per cent and 15.6 per cent chance of drawing either Borussia Dortmund or Atletico Madrid respectively from pot two in the FIFA Club World Cup group stage draw on Thursday evening.
From the pot three selections, there is an even greater chance of Pep Guardiola and his players facing off against either Argentina’s Boca Junior’s or Brazil’s Botafogo in the group stage of the competition, with a 25 per cent chance accredited to both.
Things are much closer when it comes to pot four however, with five clubs having a 12.8 per cent chance of facing Manchester City. Those teams are Pachuca, Urawa Reds, Al Ain, Espérance, and Mamelodi Sundowns.
Elsewhere in the same pot, Inter Miami and Seattle Sounders share a 12.5 per cent chance of drawing Manchester City in the group stage of the competition, whilst an 11.1 per cent chance was issued to Auckland City.
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup tournament will take place from 15 June to 13 July 2025, with a total of 12 venues used to host 63 matches across the United States, with the final played at MetLife Stadium in New York and the opening match at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
The tournament’s full match schedule – including stadiums and kick-off times – will be finalised and published once the draw has taken place this week.
FIFA have stated that the process will be “taking into account a range of factors including sporting and player-centric criteria, local and travelling fans and global broadcast considerations”.
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup will feature a group stage composing of eight groups of four teams per group playing in a single-game round-robin format, and the top two teams per group progressing into the round of 16.
From then, a direct single-match knockout stage from the round of 16 to the final will take place, with FIFA also confirming that there will be no third-place play-off match at the competition.