I saw Man City take over a sleepy town with fake shirts, a new star attraction and Michael Jordan

It hadn't rained in Chapel Hill for two months, locals said. Then Manchester City arrived in town.

It was impossible to escape the fact that City were playing as you walked around this small town. Posters were up everywhere, as were life-size cutouts of Moonchester, oddly sporting a 2018/19 away kit accompanied by a speech bubble saying 'Go, Cityzens!'. Every shop, restaurant and hotel had the same display.

A pop-up shop appeared for the week selling City merchandise, dressed up like the Etihad changing room. Dozens flocked to the store to see Ederson earlier in the week, and for a while that was the only sign of life in the area.

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This is a college town, dedicated to the University of North Carolina sports stars, but the 30,000 students are not here over summer. This week the world-class footballers took centre stage, and the students were replaced by 31,000 City and Celtic fans. As the game approached, the town filled up and City shirts were everywhere.

As City leave the quiet of Carolina and head for the noise of New York, reporter Joe Bray shares the inside track on the Blues' first leg of their US tour:

Chapel Hill is already sky blue, those being the colours of UNC, so City flags and posters don't look out of place. Even the fire trucks are light blue.

When City hosted a well-attended fan event for local supporters' clubs, there was a range of past and present City kits on show, as there were at open training and on game day.

There were even various versions of the unreleased away kit, a homage to the