Man City v Urawa Reds LIVE: Result and reaction from Club World Cup as City cruise into final

4 mins: Bernardo Silva seems to be City’s false 9 today. He’ll need support from Foden and Nunes in particular. At the moment Urawa are keeping City pinned back with quite an aggressive press. City happy to be patient though.

2 mins: It will be interesting to see how attacking Irawa are willing to be - they press pretty high early on. Man City hold possession for the first 70 seconds or so before Foden has it pinched away. Okubo whips a ball into the box but dealt with comfortably. Decent start by the underdogs though.

Underway in Saudi Arabia. Uefa Champions League winners Man City taking on Asian Champions League victors Urawa Red Diamonds in the Club World Cup semi-finals.

Urawa are, fittingly, wearing red and City in their white kits with maroon trim. The stadium is erm... not exactly full...

Let’s get it on!

Only a couple of minutes until kick-off now. Here’s how the sides will line up.

Man City XI: Ederson, Walker, Stones, Akanji, Ake, Rodrigo, Kovacic, Nunes, Bernardo, Grealish, Foden

Urawa Reds XI: Nishikawa, Sekine, Scholz, Hoibraten, Akimoto, Ito, Iwao, Okubo, Yasui, Koizumi, Kante

Not long until kick-off in Saudi Arabia now.

Not at their best, not in their usual scintillating, relentless form, not quite playing with the belief and aura of inevitability that scoring the first game’s goal means the win is all but theirs. Manchester City might be aiming now to be crowned the planet’s finest at the Club World Cup, but Pep Guardiola will know all the same that to make it four Premier League titles in a row, they’ll have to be much-improved in consistency terms across the second half of the campaign.

And yet, there’s a single huge reason to feel that’s likely to be the case: the return of Kevin de Bruyne.

Karl Matchett reflects on City’s not so secret weapon:

Pep Guardiola has called for change as the fixture burden on players continues to increase.

The Manchester City manager was speaking in light of FIFA’s decision to expand the Club World Cup to a 32-team tournament from 2025.

Guardiola insists he is not against the new event in principle – and City are already guaranteed a place – but he feels something has to give somewhere to ease the workload on players.

The Spaniard told reporters at a press conference: “I am not against the new competitions. I am against the lack of time to recover from year to year.

“This is what I am complaining (about) all the time. For me it doesn’t matter to play every three days, six days, seven days. It is OK. But it is really tough to finish the season and then in three weeks restart again and go to Asia, to be financially stable, or the States. That is really, really tough, for ourselves and especially for the players. For myself, things should change. This is my point.”

Champions League holders Manchester City are taking nothing for granted as they seek to complete their trophy cabinet by winning the Club World Cup, manager Pep Guardiola said ahead of his side’s semi-final meeting with Urawa Red Diamonds.

City, who won their first Champions League title this year, are yet to win the Club World Cup – a trophy Guardiola won twice with Barcelona and once with Bayern Munich.

“It’s a pleasure to be here, it’s the first time Man City is here. We don’t take it for granted, it’s a privilege, an honour to be here,” Guardiola told reporters.

“We know how hard it is to win this competition and you have to have done something special in the past. It is my fourth time I have played this competition and the previous times, the semi-final was really tough, really tricky every time.

“We want to win it. Once we are here, it is a trophy we do not have. We want to close the little circle and win all the trophies we could do. This is the last one.”

We now know who Man City will play if they come through tonight’s semi-final.

Jhon Arias and John Kennedy scored in the second half to give Brazilian side Fluminense a hard-fought 2-0 win over Egypt’s Al-Ahly in their Club World Cup semi-final at King Abdullah Sports City.

The Copa Libertadores champions will face the winners of Manchester City’s semi-final against Japan’s Urawa Red Diamonds in Friday’s final in Jeddah.

It was a compelling encounter, with an aggressive Fluminense dominating possession, but often being exposed by Al-Ahly’s counter attacks.

Colombia winger Arias was a constant menace, running up and down the right channel and hitting the post twice in the first half. However, Africa’s champions Al-Ahly wasted several opportunities, using the speed of Kahraba and Percy Tau to launch quick counters.

Fluminense finally managed to break the deadlock thanks to former Real Madrid fullback Marcelo, who nutmegged a defender, hitting the ball through his legs, to get into the box before being fouled from behind.

Arias slotted the penalty just inside the right post and out of the reach of goalkeeper Mohamed El Shenawy in the 71st minute.

Al-Ahly had a chance to level one minute later, but Tau missed a sitter, heading into the goalkeeper’s hands from point-blank range. As Al-Ahly tried to push for the equaliser, they were left exposed and Fluminense took advantage with substitute Kennedy adding a second in the 89th minute with a strike to finish off a counter-attack.

Reuters

Manchester City have often been described as the best team in the world. The penultimate step to officially claiming that title falls on the 25th anniversary of a historic low. On 19 December 1998, City lost 2-1 to York: their fifth consecutive league game without a win left them 12th in the old Division 2, rendering them the 56th-best team in England. On 19 December 2023, they face Urawa Red Diamonds in the semi-final of the Club World Cup. Win then and only Fluminense stand in their way in Friday’s final.

“Years ago we could not imagine to be there and we are there,” said Pep Guardiola. “I’m very pleased and excited to go there to try and win it.” It has been a remarkable rise, albeit one facilitated by about £2bn of investment from Sheikh Mansour and one clouded by 115 Premier League charges. But now, a quarter of a century after City were 15 points behind Walsall, City have one of the greatest managers in history and a treble only previously achieved by Manchester United in a season when their neighbours were a third-tier club.

Now they arrive in Saudi Arabia as favourites to retain both the Premier League and the Champions League. And yet, for a club on the brink of adding a fifth trophy of 2023 and an achievement that would symbolise a time of dominance, at something of a low.

Read Richard Jolly’s full take on Man City’s Club World Cup bid: