By Simon Bajkowski
Manchester City will head to Sicily for a friendly with Palermo as they finalise preparations for the 2025/26 campaign. The Blues will take on fellow City Football Group club Palermo at the Stadio Renzo Barbera on Saturday August 9 (8pm UK time) to contest the inaugural Anglo Palermitan Trophy. Palermo became the 11th CFG club in 2022 and were promoted to Serie B, where they currently play. Filippo Inzaghi, brother of Al Hilal manager Simone, has just taken over as head coach at the Italian club and they will host the Blues next month ahead of the new campaign; former City midfielder Claudio Gomes is on their books. CFG Global Football Technical Director Riccardo Bigon said: 鈥淚t is with great pride that we can announce this historic meeting between two CFG clubs. From a technical perspective, this game offers an important opportunity for players to continue their pre-season preparations, for both managers to implement their ideas and for the respective squads to gel together on the pitch. 鈥淗owever, this match also carries the cultural significance of two monumental clubs facing each other for the first time in history, with a nod to Palermo鈥檚 heritage and English roots. This is a match-up that both sets of fanbases can be excited about watching. 鈥淭he Anglo Palermitan Trophy is another example of the vast possibilities that being part of City Football Group can unlock. We are all looking forward to seeing how the last three years of collaboration and knowledge sharing play out on the pitch.鈥 City were only given a few weeks at the end of the season – with many in the squad playing for their national teams in that time – before they had to meet back up for pre-season training and fly out for the Club World Cup. The Blues were in the United States for nearly three weeks and played four matches but were dumped out of the competition at the last-16 stage by Al Hilal. That caused plans for Guardiola and his squad to change, with the players given the best part of four weeks to rest when they got back and make up for their earlier start. They will report back to the City Football Academy on July 28 to begin preparations for the start of their 2025/26 campaign, with the first game of the Premier League away at Wolves. It has not been confirmed whether City will play any additional friendlies as they tune up for the season. — Here at the Manchester Evening News, we鈥檙e dedicated to bringing you the best Manchester City coverage and analysis. Make sure you don鈥檛 miss out on the latest City news by joining our free WhatsApp group. You can get all the breaking news and best analysis sent straight to your phone by clicking here to subscribe. You can also subscribe to our free newsletter service. Click here to be sent all the day鈥檚 biggest stories. And finally, if you鈥檇 rather listen to our expert analysis then make sure to check out our Talking City podcast. Our shows are available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts , and you can also watch along on YouTube .