Rodri suffers injury setback as Manchester City count cost of Club World Cup exit

After Manchester City crashed out of the Club World Cup 4-3 to Al-Hilal in Orlando, Pep Guardiola blamed a lack of ruthlessness, and said Rodri had sustained an injury setback.

City were eliminated by Marcus Leonardo’s 112th-minute winner on Monday night at the Camping World Stadium in the shock result of the inaugural 32-team Club World Cup. Guardiola’s team wasted a number of chances, with Jérémy Doku, Erling Haaland, Josko Gvardiol, Rúben Dias and Savinho among those who failed to put City out of sight in the opening half.

Guardiola said: “In the end we have to score and be clinical. They did not create much in the first half, we did but could not finish it. I had a feeling we could go through. We allow them to make transitions [but] we created a lot. It is a pity, we have been on an incredible journey together [here] and in a good place. The vibe was really good, I cannot thank Manchester City enough and especially the players for training and how they have been playing.”

Rodri came on in the 53rd minute but was forced off in the 100th. The midfielder was making only a fifth appearance since returning from a serious knee injury. The manager said Rodri “complained about his situation”.

City opened the scoring on nine minutes through Bernardo Silva, then goals on 46 and 53 minutes from Leonardo and Malcom gave Al-Hilal the lead. Haaland equalised two minutes later to take the tie into extra time and after Kalidou Koulibaly’s strike was answered by Phil Foden, Leonardo got the winner.

Guardiola said: “We would have loved to have continued, it is only here every four years. We had a feeling that the team is doing well but now we go home and it is time to rest [physically] and rest our minds for the new season.”

The manager was asked whether enough has been seen for him to believe City can challenge again next season, having cast doubt on that before the match. “It is too early to say,” Guardiola replied. “But there have been so many good things I did not see in the [recent] past. The relationship between the players, our captain [Silva] helped a lot and the standards from our staff. I felt we were happy here, the training sessions have been really good. [But] Al-Hilal has a lot of quality. They are a complete team that can run and run – I have a big opinion of them but we [still] did a good game.”

View image in fullscreen The frustration shows as Pep Guardiola speaks to the media after Manchester City’s defeat by Al-Hilal. Photograph: Héctor Vivas/Fifa/Getty Images

The club’s elimination closed a torrid campaign which featured a dismal Premier League title defence and an FA Cup final defeat by Crystal Palace. A defiant Silva said: “When we start the Premier League, we will forget and focus on having a great season. We’ve had a lot of frustrations in the past as well, and we managed to come back. We’re going to try and do that again, knowing that we have a lot of competition.”

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Silva, who said the players were waiting to be told when they must report again for training, believes the defeat by Al-Hilal shows the strength of the global game. “Football has never been only in Europe,” the Portugal international said.

The Al-Hilal manager, Simone Inzaghi, was full of praise for his side: “Tonight we had to do something extraordinary because we knew how good Manchester City are. We knew we had to climb Mount Everest without oxygen and we were great. Guardiola is the best coach in the world but tonight we did our best and we deserved the result.”

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