Pep Guardiola is targeting the win that will secure passage to the knockout stage of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. Look ahead with our Man City vs Al Ain prediction and preview.
Man City vs Al Ain Stats: The Key Insights
The Opta supercomputer makes Manchester City massive favourites for this game, winning 91.7% of the pre-match simulations.
Fittingly, City – owned by an Emirati – will be the first English club to play against a team from the United Arab Emirates.
Pep Guardiola has won all nine of his matches in charge at the Club World Cup (all formats).
Manchester City can book their place in the knockout stage of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup with a win over Al Ain at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Sunday.
Pep Guardiola’s men cruised to a comfortable 2-0 win against Moroccan club Wydad AC on Matchday 1 thanks to goals from Phil Foden and Jérémy Doku, with Rico Lewis’ late red card having little impact.
Al Ain, on the other hand, were thrashed 5-0 by Juventus. As such, if City make it two wins from two this weekend, they’ll be through due to having a six-point cushion over their opponents and being guaranteed to finish above Wydad by virtue of a superior head-to-head record.
This match will be the first ever competitive meeting between clubs from England and the United Arab Emirates; City’s participation in such a meeting is apt given their owner, Sheikh Mansour, is from the UAE.
Considering Al Ain’s crushing start, few will be expecting their fortunes to improve here. City have won all three of their prior matches at the Club World Cup, including in the previous format, outscoring their opponents 9-0 across those games – they’ll fancy their chances of filling their boots again in Atlanta.
Guardiola’s record in the competition is even more one-sided; he’s won all nine matches as a coach, enjoying an aggregate scoreline of 27-2.
Al Ain’s 5-0 loss to Juve was the joint-second biggest margin of defeat in Club World Cup history, equalling the five-goal loss their compatriots, Al Jazira, suffered to Al-Hilal in 2022 (6-1).
With Lewis serving a suspension for this game, Guardiola could shuffle his options around at the back. That might mean a City debut for Rayan Aït-Nouri, who recently signed for the club in a deal potentially worth £38 million.
One player who did make their debut for City last time out was Tijjani Reijnders; the Dutchman provided some of his trademark incisive passing, breaking the opposition’s midfield line more than any other player (eight times).
Man City vs Al Ain Prediction
Man City vs Al Ain prediction
Manchester City are, unsurprisingly, overwhelming favourites to win this, according to the Opta supercomputer.
They took all three points and secured their passage to the next round in 91.7% of the latest 10,000 simulations. Al Ain, on the other hand, won in just 2.4%, though they’d likely be just as content with a draw – that occurred in 5.9%.
Following their Matchday 1 win, the supercomputer doesn’t see much chance of City failing to get out of this group, progressing in 99.3% of the latest competition sims. Whether they’ll go through as section winners (64.1%) or runners-up (35.5%) remains up in the air, though. Assuming Juventus beat Wydad on Matchday 2, it’ll come down to City facing the Bianconeri in the final round of games next Thursday.
Man City vs Al Ain Squads
Manchester City
Rúben Dias, Tijjani Reijnders, John Stones, Nathan Aké, Omar Marmoush, Erling Haaland, Jérémy Doku, Marcus Bettinelli, Nico González, Rodri, Stefan Ortega, İlkay Gündoğan, Bernardo Silva, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Vitor Reis, Joško Gvardiol, Manuel Akanji, Savinho, Matheus Nunes, Rayan Cherki, Claudio Echeverri, Ederson, Abdukodir Khusanov, Phil Foden, Oscar Bobb, Nico O’Reilly, Rico Lewis.
Head Coach: Pep Guardiola
Al Ain
Rui Patrício, Kouame Autonne, Yahya Ben Khaleq, Park Yong-woo, Yahia Nader, Matías Segovia, Mohammed Abbas, Kodjo Fo-Doh Laba, Kaku, Jonatas Santos, Houssine Rahimi, Marcel Ratnik, Erik, Khalid Al-Hashemi, Khalid Eisa, Mateo Sanabria, Matías Palacios, Soufiane Rahimi, Ramy Rabia, Nassim Chadli, Fábio Cardoso, Hazim Abbas, Hassan Muhammed, Facundo Zabala, Vedad Alibašić, Dramane Koumare, Amadou Niang, Abdoul Karim Traoré, Mohamed Awadalla, Rilwanu Sarki, Joshua Udoh, Adis Jašić, Josna Loulendo.
Head Coach: Vladimir Ivić
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off, here are the Opta Power Rankings for both sides.
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