Opta makes City likeliest knockout-stage qualifier at Club World Cup
Manchester City are huge favourites to progress from Group G of Fifa's inaugural expanded Club World Cup this summer.Pep Guardiola's men face Moroccan side Wydad AC in their opener on Wednesday, followed by Abu Dhabi's Al Ain and finally Italian giants Juventus.Opta's supercomputer, external gives City a 71.3% chance of topping Group G and a 25.9% of finishing second - a 97.2% chance of securing their place in the last 16.This 97.2% chance of progression is the highest Opta's model gives any of the 32 teams in the group stages of the competition.Given the resources of the two non-European clubs, Juventus are also heavy favourites to progress - despite enduring a tough five-year period since they were last crowned Serie A champions in 2020.At the time of writing, Wydad are 365th in the Opta Power Rankings, external, while Al Ain are rated 611th.Only Auckland City (0.1%) are deemed to have a lower probability of getting through the group stage than either Wydad (10.3%) or Al Ain (5.1%).Juve's chances are ranked at 87.4% by Opta - meaning in all likelihood the final matchday meeting between Juventus and City will decide the group winners.
With the route to the final already mapped out, topping the group looks vital to avoid Real Madrid, who are themselves heavy favourites to win Group H and face Group G's runner-up.City did face Juventus in the league phase of last season's Champions League in December, losing 2-0 in Turin during a damaging period of seven defeats in 10 games.From a financial perspective, each group-stage win will net City £1.5m, with £5.8m for reaching the last 16, £10.2m for reaching the quarter-finals, £16.3m for progressing to the semi-finals, and £31m for winning the final.The maximum prize available is about £97m for winning all of group-stage matches and then going on to win the tournament - the biggest amount ever awarded in club football over a seven-game format.City have been made second-favourites by Opta - with their 17.8% chance of lifting the trophy behind only Champions League winners Paris St-Germain's 18.5%.
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The Guardian
39 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Kevin De Bruyne remains a superstar despite his understated arrival at Napoli
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A club who used to sell themselves as scene-stealing underdogs have begun to project a different image: of a team that knows it can win trophies and intends to keep doing so. One whose international brand has strengthened to the point where they can land a player like De Bruyne. He is hardly the first big signing of De Laurentiis's tenure. Gonzalo Higuaín had scored 121 goals for Real Madrid and won La Liga three times before he joined Napoli. Victor Osimhen cost more than €70m to acquire from Lille. Still, De Bruyne belongs to a different category: one of the best performers in Premier League history, with six winners' medals and two player-of-the-season awards – the latter achievement placing him in exalted company alongside Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nemanja Vidic and Mohamed Salah. De Bruyne is also a European champion, who pushed his body to breaking point to help Manchester City get across the line in 2023. 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These are details that will make some football fans roll their eyes, but in the business of the modern game they matter. Social media following is one metric companies assess when negotiating commercial deals with football clubs. But there are more subtle impacts, too. It would be naïve to imagine that footballers, each a 'brand' in their own right, do not sometimes think about their teams' online presence and how it ties up with their own. It is not so much that De Bruyne's signing transforms the landscape for Napoli, but it might consolidate a trend. They have won two Serie A titles in three years, yet those successes have felt oddly unconnected – achieved under different managers with different tactics using different players in key roles. The 2022-23 Scudetto was a bolt from the blue, Luciano Spalletti harnessing the talent of a newly-discovered Khvicha Kvaratskhelia as well as a break-out year for Osimhen. Last season was something different, a fresh project under Antonio Conte that came together quicker than anyone expected. 'We had set ourselves the target of getting back into Europe, not even the Champions League,' Conte told Italy's Sky Sport this week. 'We wanted to have one more year of growth, then try to compete to win things in the third year.' The tension between the manager's 'slow-and-steady' vision, and the escalating pressure to keep winning as his team emerged as a front-runner, almost brought his tenure to a premature end. Even as Napoli celebrated their title, his gestures toward De Laurentiis appeared frosty. Was it the promise of signing players like De Bruyne that ultimately persuaded Conte to stay around? Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion To reverse the question, how important was the manager's presence in convincing De Bruyne to make this move? There were offers on the table from teams in the United States and Saudi Arabia, but De Bruyne still has the itch to compete at Europe's highest levels. Last season only confirmed Conte's astonishing ability to deliver silverware almost everywhere he goes. Then again, perhaps there were other factors. De Bruyne may have spoken to his Belgium team-mate Romelu Lukaku, who racked up 14 goals and 10 assists after joining Napoli from Chelsea last summer. Or their compatriot Dries Mertens, who played nine seasons for the Partenopei and fell so head-over-heels in love with the city that when he speaks of 'home' this is still the place of which he thinks, despite leaving to join Galatasaray in 2022. Mertens was awarded honorary citizenship of Naples this month. Or maybe it was even just witnessing another player move here from Manchester and reimagine their career. Scott McTominay went from United cast-off to Serie A MVP in nine months. 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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
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Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
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