Manchester City vs Barcelona friendly: Live stream info, team news and predicted lineups
Manchester City and Barcelona go head-to-head in a pre-season friendly in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday at midnight (UK time).
City haven’t enjoyed the best of summer so far, falling to back-to-back defeats against Celtic (3-4) and AC Milan (2-3). That said, Pep Guardiola has been operating with a limited squad after so many of his players went deep at Euro 2024 and Copa America and at this point, fitness is the main priority.
As for Barcelona, this marks the start of a busy couple of weeks of preparations, with challenging friendlies against Real Madrid, AC Milan and Monaco to follow this match before their La Liga opener away at Valencia on August 17th.
How to live stream Manchester City vs Barcelona online:
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Manchester City vs Barcelona team news
Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias, John Stones, Nathan Ake, Kevin De Bruyne, Jeremy Doku, Manuel Akanji, Rodri and Bernardo Silva are all still on holiday following their exploits at Euro 2024, while Julian Alvarez is representing Argentina at the Olympics. Ederson’s future remains uncertain but the Brazilian goalkeeper should still play at least 45 minutes here in rotation with Stefan Ortega.
Fermin Lopez, Eric Garcia and Pau Cubarsi are all at the Olympics with Spain, while Raphinha, Ilkay Gundogan and Jules Kounde are only expected to join up with the squad next week. Pedri, Frenkie de Jong, Gavi, Ansu Fati and Ronald Araujo are all injured.
Ferran Torres and Lamine Yamal are still on holiday after leading Spain to glory at Euro 2024.
Manchester City vs Barcelona predicted lineups
Manchester City (4-3-3): Ederson; Lewis, Simpson-Pusey, Doyle, Gvardiol; Kovacic, Perrone; Bobb, McAtee, Grealish; Haaland.
Barcelona (4-3-3): Ter Stegen; J Araujo, I Martinez, Christensen, Fort; Romeu, Gundogan, Torre; Roque, Lewandowski, Victor.
Pep Guardiola blasts FIFA and UEFA schedule
Should Manchester City reach the final of next year’s FIFA Club World Cup, they will contest that match on July 13th, 2024. That’s almost a year to the day following their return to duty for pre-season this summer and around a month before the start of the 2025/26 Premier League season. In short, the reward for Man City’s players for their incredible success in recent years will be a punishing schedule with no time to breathe.
With that in mind, you can understand exactly why Pep Guardiola has once again blasted the schedules drawn up by the likes of FIFA and UEFA, and why he’s taking as many steps as he can to protect his players — including potentially fielding weakened teams for the Community Shield against Manchester United and City’s first couple of Premier League fixtures.
“We will arrive late,” Guardiola warned. “But not against United, against Chelsea and Ipswich. We will be late, it’s try to not drop many points, try to compete well. We don’t have players because they have to rest, if the big bosses and all the institutions like FIFA, UEFA and the Premier League don’t think about the players then the managers have to think about them, otherwise they will die.
“It’s too much. That’s why three weeks or one month is necessary, but the competition is there and you have to adapt.”
