Juventus thrashing a long time coming for Man City, says Guardiola

Pep Guardiola felt Manchester City's 5-2 thrashing of Juventus at the Club World Cup had been a long time coming for his team. 

City sealed top spot in Group G with a dominant display at the Camping World Stadium with five different goalscorers on target for the Premier League side. 

Jeremy Doku's fine opener was ruled out by Teun Koopmeiners, who capitalised on a mistake by Ederson, but Pierre Kalulu's own-goal restored City's lead before the break. 

Guardiola introduced Erling Haaland at the break, and he bundled home City's third, which was also the 300th goal of his career across top-flight and international football. 

Further gloss was added to the scoreline by Phil Foden and Savinho's stunning strike from distance, with Dusan Vlahovic netting a late consolation for Igor Tudor's team. 

The result saw Guardiola maintain his perfect record at the Club World Cup. He has won all 11 of the games he has overseen in the competition, outscoring his opponents 38-4. 

After a difficult season in 2024-25, Guardiola lauded his side's display and believes it will help them grow in confidence as they look to reach the latter stages of the tournament. 

"I liked the way we did it," Guardiola told DAZN. "It has been a long time since we had a performance like this on and off the ball. The players were committed, and we are happy to beat a top side.

"This is just one game, but I think the players felt again what it was like to be a good team. The belief always comes from your performances, not your past."

The result also saw City beat the Serie A side for the first time since a 1-0 victory in the UEFA Cup in September 1976, ending a six-game winless run. 

City will face the runners-up of Group H, which will either be Real Madrid or RB Salzburg, who will battle it out for top spot in their final group games. 

And captain Bernardo Silva urged his players to remain ready for their last 16 clash, no matter who they face, saying: "I think we are very happy with what we did today.

"Against a top team, we managed to control the game to keep the ball.

"It is good, but it doesn't count much now. It is kill or be killed. We have to be ready for this next stage of important games."

For Tudor and Juventus, meanwhile, it was a damaging defeat, having taken maximum points from their first two group games. 

They ended the contest with an expected goals (xG) total of just 0.92 to City's mammoth 3.81, while also having just 23.7% possession. 

And speaking after the game, Tudor conceded that Guardiola's team were on a "different level" to his side. 

"Manchester City are too much for us," confessed Tudor to Sport Mediaset. "Congratulations to them, it's an ugly result and we don't like it.

"They have enormous quality, character, everything. We wanted to push forward, but we couldn't get the ball back off them.

"Then we sat too deep and they scored. At this moment, they are at a different level to us."