Man City’s Asia tour is Maresca’s first real look — with half a World Cup squad still away
Hong Kong vs Inter on August 1, then Seoul against a K League All-Stars side and Atletico Madrid — a three-match tour built around staggered World Cup returns.
Manchester City’s Rico Lewis and goalkeeper Stefan Ortega during the club’s 2023 Asia tour friendly against Yokohama F. Marinos at Japan National Stadium. City’s 2026 route returns to Hong Kong and Seoul.
Photo: pantkiewicz / CC BY-SA 2.0
Manchester City’s Asia Summer Tour opens in Hong Kong on August 1 against Inter Milan, then moves to Seoul World Cup Stadium for a K League All-Stars match on August 5 and Atletico Madrid on August 9. For Enzo Maresca, the trip is the first stretch of competitive minutes as City manager — and it arrives with a squad still thinning and thickening on World Cup leave.
Seventeen City players went to the tournament. Club reporting ahead of the flight has six early returnees available for the Asia leg after Round-of-32 exits and a longer rest window than FIFA’s three-week minimum: Abdukodir Khusanov, Mateo Kovacic, Josko Gvardiol, Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Ait-Nouri, and Antoine Semenyo. Players who reached the final week — including Rodri — are expected to miss the tour entirely.
The fixture list carries recent memory on purpose. The Hong Kong game, at Kai Tak Stadium as part of the Hong Kong Football Festival, revisits the 2023 Champions League final pairing and marks the men’s first-team return to the city since 2019. The Seoul Atletico rematch sits inside the Coupang Play Series; City Football Group has pointed back to a 2023 sellout when Atletico won 2–1 at the same stadium as a reason the double-header returned.
Broadcast plans put all three friendlies on CITY+, with the usual geographic blackouts around opponent markets. There is no domestic warm-up before Asia — non-World Cup players reported earlier in July, then the club goes straight from the Etihad campus to Hong Kong. Fringe and academy minutes are likely early; a more recognisable first XI may only start to settle by the Community Shield against Arsenal on August 16.
Asian and Asia-linked names already sit inside the club story around the dates. Khusanov, signed in 2025, is one of the World Cup returnees traveling. The women’s side continues to carry a Japanese core that includes Yui Hasegawa, Ayaka Yamashita, and Aoba Fujino. Those links are not why the tour exists — Hong Kong and Seoul audiences are — but they sit beside a preseason route built for APAC demand while Maresca learns who is actually fit to start a Premier League opener.