Manchester City and Barcelona are going to play a friendly match on the 24th of August. The venue for the clash will be Camp Nou.
City vs Barcelona – A homecoming of sorts for Pep
Pep Guardiola is Barcelona’s most decorated coach. He won the treble with Barcelona twice and led them to many glorious wins. He ended his four-year stint in 2012 with 14 honors, a club record.
In 2016 he joined Manchester City and led them to Premier League victory in his second year as a manager. Manchester City was the first club to reach a hundred points under Pep. So far Guardiola has won four league cups in 5 years. He has broken numerous Premier League records with his indomitable Manchester City team.
The teams last met in 2016 with Pep as the newly appointed manager for the City. City went on to lose that match 4-0 to Barcelona in the group stages.
Cancellations due to the Pandemic
According to the report in Athletic, this fixture was scheduled to take place last year. But it was postponed due to the Corona Pandemic. Both City and Barcelona agreed to postpone the project to raise funds from a full-capacity crowd of Camp Nou.
The match is in honor of former Barca player and coach Juan Carlos Uzune. Uzune was diagnosed with ALS in February 2020. Uzune has had a successful career in Spanish football. He played briefly alongside Pep at Barcelona. And later he joined Barcelona as a goalkeeping coach. Uzune has also worked with the manager of the Spainish national team, Luis Enrique. He also has had stints as a manager. He had spells in charge of Numancia, Celta, and Girona.
Manchester City will travel to Catalonia after their game with Newcastle. The club is considering staying a few days there and train before coming back to take on Crystal Place the following weekend.
