Erling Haaland, Rúben Dias & other Manchester City stars share insights ahead of FIFA Club World Cup 2025

The tournament kick off on 14th June

This year’s FIFA Club World Cup kicks off on the 14th June, with the opening fixture seeing one of the tournament’s host cities, Inter Miami, take on Al Alhy at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. The tournament will be staged across 12 venues in 11 US cities, featuring the biggest and best teams from around the world, culminating in the final on July 13th at New Jersey’s iconic MetLife Stadium.

Below are the thoughts of Manchester City stars, Erling Haaland, Josko Gvardiol and Ruben Dias, ahead of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.

Erling Haaland looking forward to exciting summer!

“I’ve never played in a FIFA Club World Cup final before, so this will be a completely new experience for me — and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve played in a Champions League final and that was incredible, so hopefully this will be just as special. It’s a big moment.”

Every game is different. Even in England, we come up against teams with different styles, and now we’re going to face clubs from all over the world. These matches will be tight, and everyone will be giving everything to win. It’s a great opportunity for us to show how strong we are.”

“It’s always exciting to play against teams and players you’ve never come up against before. There’s going be many nice games, and although we don’t know for sure who we’re going to meet, it’s going to be a great experience.

“I’ve played in the US a few times and it’s always been a great experience. The atmosphere in the stadiums is amazing, so I’m looking forward to getting out there again.”

Josko Gvardiol is ready for the challenge

“I’m really excited. This is the best tournament – 32 teams from around the world, in America, so I can’t wait to get there and hopefully achieve something really special. In Europe, we know how the atmosphere goes around here, and this is something a bit different. We’re going to get a chance to see how the atmosphere is around the world – it’s something new, a new experience, and everyone is looking forward to it.

Everyone wants to life the trophy, but there’s only one team that can, and hopefully we can be that one team – especially after what we’ve been through this season. This isn’t a holiday, it’s to try and achieve something.

Every time I go to the national team, I remember that I’m part of one of the best teams in the world and I need to represent my family and also the club, and I think our mentality now is different and we know our qualities and how good we are and that we’re there for each other when things go bad. After this season, it would be really nice to win together and show that we’re the team we were last season and can still win trophies.”

Man City’s Rúben Dias looking forward to the simple pleasures of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025

“I do think football unites the world. It’s a collective sport – it brings people together. It creates friendships – it’s a good example of life in many ways. If you actually want to reach happiness, you need to understand the value of friendship, the value of respecting someone that has a different opinion than yours, someone that is besides you and fighting with and for you.

You have to learn how to be disappointed and learn how to lose. I think football is the perfect example of it! It’s quite easy to play – you just need some shoes, a goal, a football – football is happiness!

Many people in the world are very good – but to be that good for such a long time, in the end there’s only a few clubs in the world. Many people can be good in moments, but the biggest lesson and reflection on what we did is the consistency and how long we did it for. We’ve been on America before for pre season and we always feel the warmth and it’s always a special moment to play in front of fans who don’t always have the chance to watch us play live, so there’s an extra flavour to it.

It’s a new competition and it’s a prestigious one – the teams involved are as big as you can get, so it will be a different challenge, very much like the typical national World Cup because of teams from different continents, the adaptations you have to make – it’s a big part of being successful. We’ve had a taste of it playing for our national teams, but it’s different – it will be interesting, everyone will want to win!”

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