Pep Guardiola's Man City Club World Cup plan could be about to change

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 Blues 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 Guardiola 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