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Manchester City in Asia: Massive queues, deafening screams and a marriage proposal

Not everybody can say that their engagement pictures feature Rodri , Cole Palmer and James McAtee , but that is exactly the case for one South Korean couple.

Manchester City ’s tour of East Asia has been a roaring commercial success, with the players’ public appearances attracting huge crowds, particularly in Korea.

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The team were greeted at the airport by thousands of fans inside the arrivals hall and it was no different at any of their events around the city, including a takeover of a photo booth on Saturday.

It is common for Koreans to visit buildings like this, several floors dedicated solely to photo booths, and one fan spotted an opportunity to make it truly memorable by getting down on one knee and proposing in front of three stunned City players.

Considering non-playing members of City staff have been stopped for selfies while walking around Seoul in their club gear, it cannot be overstated how treasured those photos will be to the happy couple — both wearing the latest official home shirt.

City’s growing popularity in this part of the world cannot be ignored now: they sold out each of their three matches within half an hour and the majority of the fans inside the stadiums in Tokyo and Seoul were wearing blue City shirts. Overall, the club have made over $20million (£15.5m) from the tour.

Queues to buy even more official gear snaked hundreds of metres and events like the photo booth takeover, as well as collaborations with some of the biggest stars in the region — like Erling Haaland meeting K-Pop band Blackpink — will have strengthened the depth of feeling towards the club that has been building steadily over the years.

Almost 4,000 fans watched the team train ahead of both games in Tokyo, which felt like a lot until 23,000 turned up at the World Cup stadium in Seoul on Saturday. The training session was streamed live by Coupang Play, a subscription service with six million subscribers, and the training match at the end even had commentators.

The 61,618 attendance for the Yokohama F Marinos match was a record for any J-League hosted friendly — which is not bad considering Manchester United and Arsenal have been there before — and that was smashed with an attendance of 65,049 against Bayern, the highest in Tokyo’s National Stadium for a football match. In Seoul, 64,185 people came to watch and were delighted to see top-level European clubs: even those in City shirts seemed to celebrate Atletico’s goals.

It was Pep Guardiola, though, who highlighted the trip might not have been as beneficial to their on-pitch success as it has been off it. The heat has meant training sessions have been scaled back, and the players have been struggling to sleep past 5am.

Guardiola found a way to rather artfully raise his concerns after the second game in Tokyo, a slow-paced 2-1 victory over Bayern Munich, stating that he would have complained more about it earlier in life, and then raising his concerns anyway.

“Listen, when I was younger I was grumpy all the time — ‘I cannot train, I cannot do this’,” he said. “Now I am getting older and I learn you have to adjust better.

“It is what it is, survive the heat, take good rhythm from the good games you play and go back to Manchester. If you cannot train because it is 50 degrees and humid, you don’t train and nothing will happen. It doesn’t matter. These guys play 60 games a season. Today managers at this level don’t have to have training, just be here because the club needs to do that for commercial issues and we have to do it. If people say go there, we go with a big smile, try to do good training sessions and not to get injuries, and come back.”

It would have been especially alarming, then, when the City players arrived in Seoul and received a noisy ‘public safety alert’ on their phones: ‘Heat wave warning, maximum temperature of 35 degrees or higher, refrain from outdoor activities, drink enough water, etc. Please take care of your health.’

Temperatures are in the high 30s during summer in Tokyo, with the ‘feels like’ readings topping 40C (104F). One of the messages that Ruben Dias was asked to repeat in Japanese was a warning to fans to take precautions against the heat. In Korea, the humidity took those ‘feels like’ temperatures up towards 45C (around 110F) and those public safety alerts came in twice a day, as if anybody needed reminding.

The only respite from the heat came during a two-hour downpour before the Atletico game in Seoul — the public safety alerts that buzzed around the stadium warned of flooded underground car parks this time, but the game went ahead and the humidity returned.

It is common for locals to stand in the shade of trees and buildings while waiting to cross the road, and many women carry umbrellas around with them to protect them from the sun. Even so, fans happily stood in the sun for over an hour to buy something at the two games in Tokyo, and many were already wearing official shirts anyway.

The queues were, frankly, staggering, with a line around 200 metres long snaking back on itself twice and up stairs, just to get to another, final queue. That was for one kiosk. Others attracted shorter lines than that, but still long enough to put off any casual supporter, especially in the heat. All merchandise sold out and represented the club’s biggest matchday sales figure, even bigger than the highest from last season at the Etihad — the day they lifted the Premier League trophy in May.

There’s a genuinely insane queue for just one of the shops set up around the stadium – it starts all the way back there (and then some), up the stairs and then into here (and then a bonus pic of an actually photogenic stadium) pic.twitter.com/8aORDJGkB5 — Sam Lee (@SamLee) July 23, 2023

Similar queues for the chance to have pictures taken with the three trophies that City won last season also highlight the value of the club’s on-pitch success in attracting new supporters.

Not that City have simply turned up in Asia without much previous thought: in many ways they are always here. Japanese car giant Nissan has been a long-term sponsor, Asahi has sponsored the Etihad Stadium’s tunnel club hospitality area and now the training kits, and Korean company Nexen Tire has been a City partner since 2015, sponsoring, among other things, the sleeve on the official shirts and even the physical bridge between the Etihad and the academy stadium.

City players have been popping up in TV commercials and on billboards in Japan and Korea for years and a previous trip to Yokohama and Hong Kong in 2019 will have done no harm when it comes to growing the fanbase either. Nor will becoming champions of Europe.

The collaborations here will have only strengthened the connection to the area: Bernardo Silva , Scott Carson and Maximo Perrone sang karaoke in Tokyo with supporters (the playlist included Blue Moon, Wonderwall by Oasis and Voulez Vous by ABBA (with ‘Bernardoooo’ substituted in). Erling Haaland, John Stones and Palmer were wrangled into giving out pie and chips to locals and after receiving a birthday cake in Tokyo, Haaland got a second one in Seoul as birthday cafes are another popular tradition.

The new third shirt was launched in Tokyo, with Haaland, Jack Grealish and new signing Mateo Kovacic modelling it on location. Kazuchika Okada, a Japanese WWE wrestler and City fan, had his pictures taken with the three trophies won last season, and Jisoo, the Blackpink singer who met Haaland in Seoul, has nearly 75 million Instagram followers.

The only surprise is that the fireworks that greeted City’s first goal of the tour, Stones’ sweet strike against Yokohama, were purely coincidence: the local baseball team, the Swallows, were playing in the stadium next door (there is also a rugby stadium next to that) and it is common for fireworks to signal the start of the fifth innings — and that was at the exact moment that the ball hit the net.

Ruben Dias was asked about life in Tokyo and said he could see himself living there, which could be put down as generosity to his hosts but it is something he has said privately, too, and once his press conference wrapped up he went out of his way to add more praise.

“I would just like to say one more thing about Tokyo that I forgot before,” he said, “the city is so clean, I would like to congratulate you on that.” There are very few bins on the streets — Japanese people tend to carry around a small bag to put their litter in to dispose of at home — and the ground at the popular Shibuya junction, where tourists cram into an overlooking Starbucks to video hundreds of people crossing in different directions, is regularly swept by hand.

It is not usual for Japanese people to wear football shirts in day-to-day life, but on the day of games there were a lot of City jerseys around Tokyo: a De Bruyne shirt in the food court of Kabukicho Tower, which houses a traditional Japanese arcade and cinema screens over several floors. There were Grealish shirts in Shibuya’s packed Pokemon Centre, and a Foden shirt dotted among the Harajuku girls just up the road.

Those three are by far the most popular, alongside Haaland.

“Our No 9, absolutely brilliant, man,” says 19-year-old City fan Ryo Abe, in a Manchester accent. “I was born and raised in Japan but I like Manchester. I learned the accent by watching Manchester football bloggers online.”

Yuki, 35, explains Haaland’s popularity further: “He is fantastic, powerful, he has no limits. His future is beautiful. I hope he likes Japanese culture, Japanese food and Japanese things.

“The thing is that his lotus goal celebration is in the Japanese style. It’s absolutely incredible, it’s a Japanese thing. We are very proud and happy about his goal celebration. Meditation is from Japanese Buddhism and ‘Zen’. I think Haaland is like us Japanese. He has the Japanese mentality.”

Inevitably there were loud cheers for all of the star players when their names were read aloud inside the stadiums, as well as more subdued efforts for more peripheral players, just like you would expect at the Etihad. It was interesting to note that Joao Cancelo was among those to get the biggest cheers, given he was booed when he returned to City with Bayern in April and that his general popularity has nosedived among the club’s western support.

According to locals, there are a few reasons for that: technical players like Cancelo, and David Silva, are extremely popular, more so than strikers and defenders, which is apparently rooted in comic book culture. On top of that, the lead protagonist in anime series Aoashi is a full-back. There is also not the same “no player is bigger than the club” mentality in Japan, with many fans supporting teams because of particular players, and another reason could be that the details of Cancelo’s exit — how he became regarded as disruptive by Guardiola — are not as well known.

In Korea the overwhelming favourites are Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne with Foden not far behind, judging by the decibel levels inside the World Cup stadium when their names were read out or faces flashed up on big screens. The screams were ear-splitting in Korea, where fans show their support for their favourite teams or artists a lot more obviously than in Japan. There were plenty of other shirts in the stadium — Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal among them — but sky blue was everywhere. There was even a minute’s applause after 21 minutes for David Silva, the City legend who retired last week due to a knee injury.

“There are a huge amount of fans here in Korea, which I didn’t expect,” Kovacic said at his press conference. Other players have opened up on one of Guardiola’s main themes of the summer so far.

“The manager already picked up on that, he doesn’t want anyone slipping up or being too casual,” Nathan Ake says.

“We spoke about tracking back. Maybe sometimes when things are nice and when you’re good, maybe everything is good when you have the ball, but when we have to defend and everyone has to run back maybe it’s not with the same intensity.

“Little things like this the manager really picks up on and says it straight away, he says we can’t do that, we can’t drop the mentality because all over the years when we are pressing teams we come with the energy and we don’t let teams breathe but if we drop that then you drop the levels.”

Stones also shed some light on how City like to work at this time of year, with long running sessions off limits even in the 12C temperatures of east Manchester.

“When we look at the stats and what we’re actually doing in the day-to-day training sessions it’s just like doing a running session, we just do everything with the ball,” Stones explains. “I think it’s a win-win because we’re keeping mentally focused, knowing our roles and responsibilities and knowing what he’s asking of us.

“It’s about getting back in the rhythm and the little habits that we were so good at last season, we’re not missing out on that time while we’re training, we’re with the ball, we’re in shape.”

City have got used to playing pre-season games without their top players because they contribute so many internationals to summer tournaments, but despite having everybody together from day one in Asia they are in a similar situation to recent years, which also owes to their season finishing in the middle of June.

“I wouldn’t say we are far away but we are a way from our best conditions to be in top, top form,” Guardiola said in Tokyo. “But that is normal. We rely on the mentality and principles that we have, we have one week in Manchester to train specifically for that final and prepare a little bit better than we can train here. It is what it is and what it has been in previous seasons, we always play the Community Shield not in a good condition.”

Not perfect preparations for a new season, then, but as Guardiola notes they are at least used to that. And given how well everything else went, it will surely not be long before City are back in Asia.

(Header photo by Lexy Ilsley – Manchester City/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)

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Sam Lee is the Manchester City correspondent for The Athletic. The 2020-21 campaign will be his sixth following the club, having previously held other positions with Goal and the BBC, and freelancing in South America. Follow Sam on Twitter @ SamLee

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Man City to face Atletico Madrid in Seoul as part of pre-season Asian tour

By Paul Nicholson

April 21 – Manchester City have announced they will travel to Asia for their 2023/24 pre-season tour and will play LaLiga’s Atletico Madrid in Seoul, South Korea, on July 30.

The match is part of the ‘Coupang Play Series’. Coupang Play is a streaming service in Korea and will broadcast the game locally.

Stephen Kim, Head of Coupang Play, said: “We very much look forward to welcoming Manchester City to Korea for the Coupang Play Series,” adding, “The club and its exceptional squad will present an unforgettable match to ourCoupang Wow customers and Korea’s football fans.”

The fixture against Atletico Madrid, who Man City last played in the Champions League quarter finals in 2021/22 is one of three fixtures the club will play in Asia. Further details of matches are to be announced

This is the first time City have played South Korea since 1976, when the team featured players such as DennisTueart, Alan Oakes, Glyn Pardoe and Willie Donnachie. The played a three-match series in Seoul, Busan and Teagu against a Korea XI.

The club also recently visited Seoul in November 2022 as part of its Global Trophy Tour, taking the Premier League trophy alongside club ambassador Shaun Wright-Phillips. City also hosted fan events in 2018 (Seoul) and 2019 (Seoul and Busan) during previous trophy tours.

Esteve Calzada, Chief Commercial Officer at City Football Group, said: “We are excited to announce this preseason fixture in Seoul, South Korea as part of our Asia tour this summer, as we return to the region for the firsttime since 2019. Manchester City has a strong relationship with South Korea, with a number of strategic and long-term partners from the country and a passionate, ever growing fanbase. It has been almost 50 years since we first played in Seoul as a club and we can’t wait to bring today’s generation of players to fans in the country.”

Contact the writer of this story at moc.l 1714921224 labto 1714921224 ofdlr 1714921224 owedi 1714921224 sni@n 1714921224 osloh 1714921224 cin.l 1714921224 uap 1714921224

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It really has been eye-opening to see just how popular Man City have become in Japan and South Korea.

Fresh off the back of their record-breaking trip to Tokyo, the Blues have wasted no time picking up where they left off with even more mania in Seoul.

23,000 fans attended the club's open training session on Saturday, further evidence of the club's huge popularity in this market. Earlier in the day, thousands of fans packed inside the Puma store for a special club event with six players, and queues of hundreds waited just to get inside a photobooth that had been decked out in club colours.

ALSO READ: Man City vs Atletico Madrid live

That popularity could rise even further in the coming years, with City extremely savvy in its commercial commitments here. Hugely popular South Korean media personalities have been invited to vlog behind-the-scenes, and Erling Haaland posed for pictures with K-Pop star Jisoo, who has 74 million Instagram followers of her own.

The club has also collaborated on Roblox with another K-Pop band (ask your kids), further clever moves to generate huge interest in an untapped market. This increased popularity is even more impressive when you consider the affection for Son Heung-min at Tottenham, as well as the time Park Ji-sung spent on the other side of Manchester.

Pep Guardiola was asked about Son during his pre-match press conference, which came as no surprise. Rather than hint at a potential transfer, though, he simply joked about all the times they'd been tormented by him. Deep down, you can't help but think Son could be the perfect addition to this City side in so many ways.

There was a moment when it looked like we wouldn't even make it to the press conference in the first place. We had spent the day speaking to John Stones for a piece that will emerge in the coming days, and decided to head back to our hotels for a bit of downtime before a busy evening.

We thought we'd got our timings spot on to arrive at the World Cup Stadium with enough time to set up and settle, but faced a mad dash across town when it emerged our taxi driver thought he was heading for Seoul Station instead. Let's hope things don't get lost in translation when we head back there for the final summer friendly against Atletico Madrid on Sunday.

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