Pep Guardiola
Pep Guardiola has already achieved one aim in the Club World Cup
It's been difficult to read too much into Pep Guardiola's Club World Cup selections so far, with the Manchester City boss keen to get minutes into all of his players in the United States.
The have their eyes on the prize across the Atlantic, but rotation was always going to be prioritised in the opening Group G encounters against Wydad AC and Al Ain.
Sure enough, there were 11 changes from one fixture to the next and third-choice goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli and defender John Stones are now the only members of the 27-man squad yet to get on the pitch across 180 minutes of football. Bettinelli might now be used in the tournament, and Stones is continuing his own journey back to full fitness after a difficult 2024/25, when he missed 33 games with four separate injuries.
With having pretty much achieved his stated ambition of using every player, we might start to see his strongest XI now take shape for the remainder of the tournament, beginning with the clash against Juventus in Orlando on Thursday night. City have to beat Juve to top the group and likely avoid a last-16 showdown with Real Madrid, although that will only be confirmed a few hours later when the final games in Group H take place.
So there is a clear incentive to go strong against the Serie A giants. Not only do City want to win this tournament, but they want to use it to banish demons from last term, and what better way to take a step along that path than beating a team that they lost to in Turin last December.
Victory is likely to tee up a last-16 clash with RB Salzburg or Al Hilal, both of whom have the capacity to cause City problems, although not to the extent that Xabi Alonso's star-studded Real could. Either way, Guardiola will need to be picking strong teams from here on in if he is to win the Club World Cup for the fifth time in his managerial career.
That is likely to start offering us clues on who he sees as being in his strongest team when the Premier League season kicks off, and there are certainly places up for grabs. We can ink certain names in. Ederson is the goalkeeper, Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol now look the first-choice centre-back partnership, and Rayan Ait-Nouri will be the left-back.
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Rodri has to start in midfield and Erling Haaland in attack, but around them, there are places up for grabs. Matheus Nunes will take advantage of Rico Lewis' red card to start at right-back this week, but that place in the team is clearly far from settled.
There are plenty of options for the midfield spots around Rodri. Nico Gonzalez would have expected one of them after signing from Porto for £50million in January, but he might have dropped down the pecking order. Tijjani Reijnders is a likely starter after his £46million move from AC Milan.
Bernardo Silva is now the club captain and will start plenty of games, while Mateo Kovacic can only press his case when he returns from injury towards the start of the domestic season. Ilkay Gundogan scored twice against Al Ain, but the 34-year-old continues to be linked with a move to Galatasaray.
Rayan Cherki's quiet debut was followed by an electrifying 15-minute cameo against Al Ain, and Phil Foden looked sharper than he has for a while against Wydad AC. They might be competing for the attacking midfield role, but one of them could play on the right as well.
Savinho is another option there, but he could also compete with Jeremy Doku for the left-wing role. Omar Marmoush might yet have a say and is capable of starting behind Haaland or wide on the left.
This squad has more options than Guardiola has had for a long time and more uncertainty over his best team than we've seen for many seasons. The next few weeks in America might start to offer a few clues.