A condensed pre-season brings extra weight to Sunday's meeting
Most Premier League sides have spent the summer racking up four, five, even six friendlies. Plenty of minutes to build fitness, tinker with combinations and get a feel for a preferred starting eleven. City, by contrast, have had a far shorter programme.
Sunday's game against Atlético Madrid in Seoul will be only their third friendly of pre-season. That makes it a little more significant than your average warm-up fixture.
There is a practical edge to this one. With fewer games to work with, every half of football carries more information for Enzo Maresca. This is a chance to see players in a competitive setting, to test ideas against a side that will not make life easy.
Atleti are not the sort of opposition that lets you coast through ninety minutes. They press, they niggle, they make you work for every pass. It is, in other words, exactly the kind of test you want when time is short.
Sunday's game will only be their third friendly before next season.
The condensed schedule is not necessarily a criticism. It could be read as a statement of intent — a squad deemed close to ready, a manager confident in what he already has. Or it might simply be the hand dealt by a congested calendar and long-haul travel.
Either way, what Maresca learns from this one will likely shape his thinking heading into the season proper. One suspects he will be watching closely. The rest of us might just learn something too.