Manchester City and Chelsea Gear Up for Epic Columbus Clash

COLUMBUS, OH

Now, each club had separate individual training sessions with fans in attendance to watch their favorite players in person, quite possibly for the very first time.

Chelsea was up first and all eyes were on the likes of Frenchman Christopher Nkunku, as well as Chelsea captain Reece James, who both struggled with injuries last season at the London-based club. City took the field next and they might have felt at home, with the skies opening up and rain coming down as the players got their chance to train at Lower.com Field. But there is still much of a challenge for all involved, even during the summer.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola said: “Well, normally we come here with, 80% of the first team and now we arrive here just with the 20% of the first team. That is a big difference because it’s a question you cannot work anything because they deserve the holidays. Because [they] play every three days in front of 65, 70 thousand people or 50, 50 thousand people. It’s so exhausting.”

Croatian defender Josko Gvardiol added, “Yeah. It’s really nice to come to U.S. It’s my first time being here with Manchester City and I really like it. It’s just different than being in Europe. especially when, when we were in New York, we had an opportunity to train in the Central Park. So, we are also looking forward to face Chelsea tomorrow here in Columbus.”

“It’s the reality in this moment with the amount of a game that, we have, not only in Premier League, not only in England, everywhere, international games” said Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca. “So it’s, it’s quite difficult for the players, also in terms of recovering energy. Like, I said too many times, it’s what it is. We need to adapt and they need, they need to adapt.”