In the early morning of December 20, Man City had a match against Urawa Red Diamonds in the semi-final of the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup.
Urawa Red Diamonds is not a strange name to Vietnamese football fans when this team just suffered a defeat against Hanoi FC in the group stage of the 2023-2024 AFC Champions League. This defeat made the Japanese representative a former champion in the highest level tournament in Asia for clubs.
Back to the FIFA Club World Cup semi-final, Man City did not use their strongest squad when facing Urawa Red Diamonds. However, the English representative still easily dominated the game. But it was Marius Hoibraaten's own goal in the first half's extra time after a cross from Matheus Nunes that Man City took the lead.
In the second half, Man City played easier when they had opened the scoring. In the 52nd minute, Walker had a very good pass for Kovacic to score to increase the score to 2-0 for the team from Europe.
After conceding 2 goals, Urawa Red Diamonds played very hard to find a goal to shorten the score, but were unsuccessful. In addition, the Asian team conceded another goal in the 59th minute, when Bernardo Silva shot into the net.
In the end, Man City won 3-0 against Urawa Red Diamonds to reach the FIFA Club World Cup final on December 23. Man City's opponent in the final match is Fluminese, a team from Brazil. Meanwhile, Urawa Red Diamonds will compete for 3rd place with Al-Ahly.
