City on a mission to 'close the circle'

English champion moves step closer to winning maiden Club World Cup title after easing past Japan's Urawa Reds

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Manchester City set aside struggles at home to ease past Urawa Red Diamonds 3-0 in the Club World Cup semifinals on Tuesday and is one game away from a fifth title in 2023.

The champion of Europe has never lost to the champion of Asia at a Club World Cup and it never looked likely on a balmy evening in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.

It took City until first-half stoppage time to score from an own-goal by defender Marius Hoibraten, Mateo Kovacic and Bernardo Silva hit the net in a seven-minute spell early in the second half against the Japanese team.

City is now favored to beat Fluminense of Brazil in Friday's final.

City is yet to win the Club World Cup, a trophy City manager Pep Guardiola won twice with Barcelona and once with Bayern Munich.

"It's a pleasure to be here, it's the first time Man City is here. We don't take it for granted, it's a privilege, an honor to be here," Guardiola said.

"We know how hard it is to win this competition and you have to have done something special in the past... It is my fourth time I have played this competition and the previous times the semifinal was really tough, really tricky every time.

"We want to win it. Once we are here, it is a trophy we do not have. We want to close the little circle and win all the trophies we could do. This is the last one."

Guardiola's team keeps finding respite in international games during an untypical run in the English Premier League where the defending champion has won just one of its last six games while leaking late goals.

A winning Club World Cup debut followed City closing out a perfect six-win streak in its Champions League group this month. City also added a UEFA Super Cup title in August to its storied trophy treble last season of Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup.

City needed some help to score first on Tuesday when Hoibraten diverted a Matheus Nunes pass into his own net.

With Erling Haaland still ruled out by a foot injury, Guardiola also opted to leave Argentina forward Julian Alvarez on the bench.

The biggest cheers during a lackluster first half came when the faces of City stars Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne sitting in the main stand were broadcast on the screens placed high at each end of the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium. Neither will play in the final.

De Bruyne was not risked despite taking part in a light training session on Monday over four months after having surgery on a hamstring injury sustained early in City's Premier League season-opener.

Otherwise the noise from a 40,127 crowd inside a far-from-full stadium was raised by about 400 red-andblack clad Urawa fans sitting behind one goal.

The clapping, singing, jumping group kept time to relentless drumming by one in their ranks and continued after the goals arrived either side of halftime.

In the 52nd minute, deep-lying midfielder Kovacic exploited the space left vacant where Haaland would usually be to surge forward and shoot after collecting Kyle Walker's long pass.

It was shooting practice for City seven minutes later when Silva scored with the help of a slight deflection after goalkeeper Shusaku Nishikawa pushed away Nunes' first effort.

City cruised through the last half-hour and Guardiola detailed an approach in Jeddah for his squad that is on a constant two-games-per-week program this season.

"The plan is to sleep and to sleep and to sleep," the coach said, praising Walker as an "incredible captain" who organizes social time for teammates.

A game between the fourth-place team in England and the fourth-place finisher in the Japanese league that ended this month exposed a much wider gulf.

Urawa coach Maciej Skorza acknowledged his players could not handle the Premier League champion's "huge offensive power".

"They know what the gap is," Skorza added. "We expected possession of the ball would be huge for Manchester City, but we had our plan to counterattack. Maybe this match showed also quite a big difference in the physical aspect between these two teams."

European teams are now unbeaten in 21 Club World Cup matches stretching back to 2012.

On Friday, another Europe vs South America final — the 13th in 19 editions — will decide the last Club World Cup title in the current format that began in 2005.

Urawa will also be in the 32-team lineup when FIFA relaunches the competition in June 2025 in the United States.

Agencies