Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund to battle at Soldier Field

Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund – Friday, July 20, 18:05PST/21:05EST/5:05 BST (Sat) – Soldier Field, Chicago, USA

Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund will take place at Soldier Field in Chicago (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

The annual International Champions Cup once again kicks off this summer. Once again Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund will take part in the annual summer tournament that takes place in North America, Asia and Europe.

For both Manchester and Dortmund, the tournament is once again a perfect opportunity to test new players and also increase their profile in North America. For Pep Guardiola pre-season tournaments like the International Champions Cup are usually a place in which to experiment.

Hence, the Catalan will be expected to make full usage of his squad, paying little attention to the demands of the capacity crowd at Chicago’s Soldier Field, when facing Borussia Dortmund on Friday afternoon. Hence, while the squad includes several prominent faces, fans can expect to see young and exciting faces such as Brahim Diaz, Douglas Luiz, Jack Harrison, among others, to get significant playing time and a chance to poof themselves.

For Dortmund, in the meantime, the United States trip is all about gaining publicity after a season to forget. Going through two coaches, Dortmund stumbled into a fourth-place finish – barely hanging on to a Champions League spot at the end of the season.

As a result, Dortmund brought in new head coach Lucien Favre – he was already the number one candidate last summer – to institute a rebuild of the club. Currently, Dortmund are attempting, or already have, to offload several older players and at the same time are on the lookout to bring in fresh blood.

Some of that fresh blood will already be on display throughout the International Champions Cup. Favre will give significant playing time to new defenders Abdou Diallo and Achraf Hakimi. In midfield lookout for Mario Götze and Mahmoud Dahoud, who both want to move on from a season to forget. Up front, Dortmund are still on the lookout for a new striker. The clubs prefered candidate is Juventus’ Mario Mandžukić – he could be surplus material with the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo – but until a new striker is signed young Alexander Isak will be given a chance to show that he is Dortmund’s striker of the future.

Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund – Players to look out for:

Leroy Sané #19 – Manchester City

Normally, Leroy Sané should be on holiday recovering from what should have been a deep run with the German national team at the 2018 FIFA World Cup. But to the surprise of many Sané was not included in Germany’s World Cup squad. Germany would later struggle at the tournament, and many Premier League fans pointed at the absence of Sané from the team as one of the many reasons for Germany’s struggles at the tournament. Justified or not Sané’s exclusion from the squad meant that the City winger is now unscathed from Germany’s worst World Cup performance in history and going into his third full year at City Sané can now show the world that he can become a key player for die Nationalmannschaft.

Leroy Sané will want to show that his national team exclusion was unjustified (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP)

Christian Pulisic #22 – Borussia Dortmund

Christian Pulisic is the face of Borussia Dortmund’s United States tour. “This trip is going to be a lot of work,” Pulisic explained ahead of Dortmund’s trip to the United States. Only 19 Pulisic is the biggest soccer star in the United States and even world stars like the basketball player LeBron James have been spotted wearing a shirt of the Dortmund star. With Dortmund in rebuild mode and Andriy Yarmolenko sold to West Ham, Pulisic is now in a position in which he will be pushed into a greater role at Dortmund that will go beyond that of a US football ambassador.

Christian Pulisic will be the face of Dortmund’s United States tour (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)

Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund – Match Stats

• Pulisic, 19, holds multiple records, including being the youngest foreign-born goalscorer in Bundesliga history and the youngest player to have tallied for the USA in a World Cup qualifier.
• Jadon Sancho scored 12 goals in 14 U18 Premier League games for Manchester City before making the move to the Signal Iduna Park last August.
• The Black and Yellows have never been beaten by City. The teams met home and away in the 2012/13 UEFA Champions League, drawing 1-1 in Manchester before BVB won 1-0 in Dortmund.
• As well as Pulisic, Sancho and Isak, Dortmund’s first-team squad boast a further four teenagers, making it among the youngest first teams in the Bundesliga.

Futbolgrad Network Prediction: Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund – 2-2

Manchester City vs Borussia Dortmund – Lineups

Manchester City:

Formation: 4-2-3-1

Squad: Bravo, Hart, Laporte, Sane, B. Silva, Mendy, Adarabioyo, Mahrez, Roberts, Denayer, Grimshaw, Zinchenko, Luiz, Harrison, Nmecha, Foden, Muric, Garcia, Touaizi, Diaz, Pozo, Dele-Bashiru, Garre, Bolton, Humphreys, Matondo, Wilson, Ogbeta

Head Coach: Pep Guardiola

Borussia Dortmund:

Formation: 4-2-3-1

Squad: Zagadou, Diallo, Sancho, Sahin, Götze, Reus, Isak, Toljan, Wolf, Rode, Dahoud, Philipp, Schürrle, Pulisic, Gomez, Piszczek, Schmelzer, Burnic, Bruun Larsen, Hitz, Toprak, Oelschlägel, Hakimi, Bochdorn, Pieper, Boadu, Hupe, Dieckmann, Sechelmann

Head Coach: Lucien Favre

Manuel Veth is the owner and Editor in Chief of the Futbolgrad Network. He also works as a freelance journalist and among others works for the Bundesliga and Pro Soccer USA. He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in History from King’s College London, and his thesis is titled: “Selling the People’s Game: Football’s transition from Communism to Capitalism in the Soviet Union and its Successor States,” which is available HERE. Originally from Munich, Manuel has lived in Amsterdam, Kyiv, Moscow, Tbilisi, London, and currently is located in Victoria BC, Canada.  Follow Manuel on Twitter @ManuelVeth.