Man City have double priority this week despite Barcelona positives

Just why were Manchester City in Barcelona playing a friendly when the season has already begun?

It is a question that has been asked by supporters ever since the game was announced, and has spawned dozens of SEO pieces from websites over the last week all trying to provide an answer. Primarily, it wasn't for footballing reasons but for a good cause with all the money raised going to Juan Carlos Unzue - a well-respected former goalkeeper-turned-coach in Spanish football who won the Treble as staff with Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique.

Unzue has the debilitative ALS disease, known as motor neurone disease (MND) in the UK, that attacks the nervous system and brain and is currently incurable. It is a horrible illness, and it has taken the collective might of Unzue and FC Barcelona to make some headway in raising awareness and money towards tackling it; 91,062 tickets sold for this friendly that came complete with a performance from a Spanish pop sensation will have helped greatly.

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Guardiola has left himself open to criticism given he so regularly (and rightly) moans about the busy fixture schedule and the City hierarchy have not appeased those supporters who think they are too soft on Barcelona because of their shared history - the Catalan club have openly pursued Bernardo Silva this summer with barely a peep of discontent from the Etihad. But the City manager is a loyal man and it became crystal clear that the Blues were the perfect opponents for this match precisely because of the ties with the man everyone was there to support; there are far worse causes to go out of your way for.

And despite it not being about the football, Guardiola and City have made it